


how the faces of love have changed

by Ellerigby13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cunnilingus, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Masturbation, Not Cheating, Pining, Requited Love, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Survivor Guilt, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-01-29 05:42:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 70,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21405127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: On April 18, 2018, half the Earth's population disappears in clouds of dust just hours after an alien attack on New York City.  Darcy Lewis's fiance Ian happens to be part of that half.  Because she does not possess the ability to just stand by and watch as the world ends, she and Jane set out to find the Avengers to fix the incident known only as "The Exodus" - and to get Ian back.Steve Rogers has failed to keep his team together, his best friend alive, and the world safe.  He's ready to give up when a girl so unfaltering, so vibrant comes into his life demanding to be taken seriously.  He would be head-over-heels in love with her, if only she weren't engaged to a man he couldn't save.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis
Comments: 329
Kudos: 487





	1. ||one||

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Em_Jaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/gifts).

> This is a very spontaneous story that I can't guarantee I'll finish, but y'all know I'll do my damnedest. Dedicating this one to the lovely Em_Jaye because she's inspired me to reintroduce myself to using poetry as references for each chapter. Poem titles and writers will be named at the beginning of each corresponding chapter.
> 
> Title of the fic comes from "Crystal" by Stevie Nicks.

||one||

_ Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,  
_ _and softly,  
_ _and exclaiming of their dearness,  
_ _fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,_

_ with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,  
_ _their eagerness  
_ _to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are  
_ _nothing, forever?_

_ -“Peonies” - Mary Oliver _

It happens on a Thursday, around four o’clock in the afternoon. 

Darcy’s sitting on the couch with BBC World News on, watching footage from the attack on New York the previous day and trying to keep herself from completely losing her shit. Jane is on the phone, telling her that yes, it does look like the end of the world, but they’ve seen the world end before. And stopped it. There’s proof, there, Jane insists, in her flat - Ian is standing in the kitchen putting on a pot of tea, because that’s what Brits do in a crisis.

“You’re right,” Darcy says, and tries to laugh. “We’ve done a pretty damn good job, haven’t we?”

“Darcy.” She hears her name in the monotone that usually comes as a warning from Jane, and if her heart could sink any lower, it would. “You’re not saying goodbye. Not today, okay? Everything in New York flew back to wherever the hell it came from. First response crews are already getting things cleaned up.” Jane sighs, and Darcy can’t help but picture her gnawing each fingernail down to the quick.

“Have you heard from...you know, the Big Guy?”

The line goes silent for a moment. “No. No, I haven’t. And neither has Erik.”

She hears a faint, “Hello, Darcy!” in the background and bites back her tears to smile. She doesn’t tell Jane how much she misses her, or their Science Dad. “Tell Erik I said hi, too.” She sniffles, wipes her nose with the sleeve of her sweater. “Hey, if the world hasn’t ended yet, is it still cool if we stay with you guys when we visit next week? I’ll find us tickets to _ Hamilton _. And if I don’t find tickets, we’ll sneak into the balcony like the old-timey street urchins used to do.”

Jane chokes out a laugh, and Darcy watches Ian’s hands shake as he pours them each a cup of tea. The flat feels small and cold, but when he sits beside her, she tucks herself into the crook under his shoulder. The small sapphire on her left hand twinkles almost menacingly in the sparse London sun filtering in through the windows. “Yeah. You can come stay with us. I’ll take you to Coney Island and we can load up on all the hot dogs you can eat.”

“Ian can finally taste a proper hot dog.” She forces a giggle, and he gives her a little squeeze and a kiss to the top of the head. “We’ll take tourist pictures in Times Square.”

“Get those tacky Statue of Liberty hats.”

“We can go to the Met and pretend we know everything about the paintings.”

“If we take Erik, he _ will _ know everything about the paintings.”

Darcy feels Ian’s fingers curling in her scalp, rolling her hair between his fingertips. She closes her eyes, brings his free hand to her lips to kiss his palm. “I love you,” he mouths, and nudges her cup of tea towards her on the coffee table with a gentle nod of encouragement.

“I guess I should get back to work,” Jane says in a thick voice, and Darcy can hear the rustling of her wiping at her face. “Tony Stark is allegedly in space, and _ some _body has to keep the Manhattan lab running. Will you call me before you go to sleep tonight?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can. Love you, Janey.”

“Love you.”

She thumbs over the end call button, and settles herself more comfortably into her fiance’s arms. “Is it dumb that I’m worried?”

“Nothing you do is dumb,” he tells her, and his lips are making gentle work under her earlobe. “You’re the most brilliant woman I’ve ever known.”

“Don’t you start, now.” She laughs through her tears, which have started coming loose, and she’s too tired to do anything to stop them. “Don’t you start with the goodbyes.”

“I’m not.” He moves down her neck, hand wisping through her hair to move it away so he can access the tender skin there. “Can’t I tell my brilliant fiancee just how brilliant she is? Like I would any other day?”

And he would. He has. Since the dark elf attack, a moment hasn’t gone by that he hasn’t made her feel like...to run the risk of sounding like a cliche in what could be her last moments on Earth, like a goddess. He rubs her feet without her even asking, he always picks up her favorite scone from her favorite bookshop even when it’s out of his way, he wakes her up with oral on their lazy Sunday mornings. He makes her feel loved the way nobody else ever has, gives her everything she never knew she needed.

She couldn’t be more thankful to have someone like him in her life.

“Ian Boothby,” she sighs, when his teeth find the sensitive point at the bridge of her collarbone, and he runs his tongue over it before biting down. “You’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?”

“You know nothing quite gets me going like your old-time film quotes.” His long, thin fingers have left her hair, and slide down to the hem of her shirt, running up her back, fiddling with her bra clasp.

“Don’t call _ The Graduate _ old-time.” She fumbles on his sweatpants, rolls the waistband down his thighs. He’s half-hard already, rutting into her hand while he finally gets the clasp open and her breasts free. Ian helps her shirt over her head, and it falls with her bra to be forgotten on the rug. “Why don’t we just get married today? Huh? Find a little chapel for the end of the world.”

“That’s an excellent idea. I think I’d like to make love to you first, though,” he whispers, and grabs her hard by the waist. She’s on her back before she can blink, and Ian’s making his way down her body, his hand working one nipple and his mouth the other. Darcy closes her eyes, lets herself run her fingers through his hair.

“You’re the best intern ever, I swear to God.” Her yoga pants are being yanked down her calves when it happens.

The change is not gradual. One moment, she can feel his chin bumping against her belly button, can see his hazel eyes full and kind and loving as they flash upwards towards her. Her phone begins to chime, and she turns her head for a quarter of a second, when a weight lifts off her front. When she goes back to meet Ian’s gaze, a thin layer of gray specks floats through the air where her boyfriend once was, wisping in an invisible wind.

He’s gone.

* * *

_ TWO WEEKS LATER. _

There’s a notebook Darcy got on a whim during her Culver days, just before she and Jane left to spend the summer in New Mexico. It’s small, a little thing about the size of her hand, with a pink cactus print on the covers. She hasn’t used it because she takes most notes in her laptop, but she’s kept it among her belongings because it reminds her of the old days with Jane.

After half the world goes to dust, the owner of the bakery she’s been spending the summer keeping the books for finds her alone in her flat, screaming Ian’s name and trying to collect the tiny pieces of him she can identify through the regular dander of the living room. Kelsey Sawyer, an older Welsh woman with dark skin and hair the color of golden corn, drops to her knees beside Darcy, lets her sob into her arms, and tells her that her husband and daughter disappeared while they were finishing the piping of a wedding cake that was due the following morning.

They work together for two weeks, staying in the studio above the bakery to avoid going to the places they used to call home, and try to keep track of the people they know are still alive and the people they know who are gone.

She uses the notebook to write down the names of every person she can think of. Her parents. Her brother, and his family. Jane, Thor, Erik, Ian. Her second grade teacher, the lunch lady at her middle school, the barista at her favorite coffee shop back home, the tiny daughter of the youngest pastry chef at the bakery. One way or another, she finds out who’s gone, all but evaporated, and crosses out each name in a thin, straight line.

Claire Healy, the high schooler who orders a cinnamon latte. Hugh Montoya, the bakery’s senior pastry chef. Lena Wong Lawrence, wife of Trisha Lawrence, who teaches at Cambridge and always gets her a sausage pie before her lunch hour. Kelsey’s husband William, her bubbly, precocious daughter Therese. 

She can’t bring herself to cross out Ian’s name just yet.

Darcy holds the notebook in one hand and Kelsey’s hand in the other when they finally arrive outside Jane’s apartment building in Manhattan, hunting for some sign of familiarity to a world that has been half-lost to what people are calling “The Exodus.”

“What if she’s not in there?” Darcy says, looking up to the unlit fifth floor, the brick that somehow looks so much more ancient than it did the last time Darcy came to visit.

“What if she is?”

There’s no doorman, and the street is dirtier than she remembers. A harried-looking receptionist she’s never met sits at the lobby desk and doesn’t ask any questions when they pass her by on the way to the elevators. Kelsey releases her hand as the doors slide open.

“Go on,” Kelsey tells her, and folds her hands in front of her. “I’ll be here whenever you...you know.”

Darcy’s hands shake on the ride up the elevator, and don’t stop as she makes her way toward door 519. No doormat, nothing special about the knocker. At first glance, it’s absolutely as normal as every other door in the hallway. She can hear people talking, hushed, somewhere down the corridor, the soft sound of music playing from somewhere in the opposite direction. When she leans forward toward the door, there’s a faint sound of whirring coming from behind it. She lifts a hand at last, and knocks.

The whirring stops. Someone shuffles on the other side, blocking the tiny circle of light in the peephole. And then the door swings open.

“Darcy,” Jane breathes. Her hair is tied into a bun over her head that looks like it hasn’t been washed in weeks and her clothes seem slept-in with stains everywhere there shouldn’t be stains. She smells stale, looks gaunt, as if she hasn’t eaten. Her face is red and blotchy, and it’s clear that she’s been crying for who knows how long. She hasn’t left the apartment in a while.

Darcy pulls her into her arms. The first thing that strikes her about having Jane so close now, after everything, is just how small and fragile she feels in Darcy’s grasp.

“Erik,” Jane’s saying, and Darcy notices that she’s shaking like a leaf. “Erik’s gone.”

Her stomach turns cold and heavy. She pulls back, pushes a stray strand of Jane’s hair behind her ear. “He was with you when it happened. After you called me.”

“I tried calling you back, Darcy,” Jane pleads, and she’s crying again. Her lower lip trembles pitifully, and Darcy wants to be sick. “I tried calling you back, but with everything going to shit…”

“Cell service has been down ever since.” She heaves an exhale, and it feels like her heart is breaking all over again. “Ian is gone, too. I’m still trying to figure out my parents, and Corey, his family...the girls…” She thinks of her nieces, Zoe and Julianna, the twins with nothing in common but their smiles. Zoe, with her soft green eyes and rambunctious giggle and Juli, with her inquisitive brown eyes, her almost perpetually furrowed brow. She swallows her tears again. And again. “I, uh...linked up with my boss from London. We came here to see what...I don’t know, see if we could find you. See if there’s anything we can do to...help put the world back together. If that’s possible.”

By the looks of Jane, it’s possible. And by the looks of the messy paperwork scattered around her apartment behind her, it’s a distinct _ something _that she’s been working on.

Jane chews her lip and steps out of the doorway. “We should go get your friend and make our way upstate. I’ve been keeping tabs on SHIELD - or what’s left of it. When I stopped by the lab at the old Stark Tower yesterday, there was an activity blip.”

Darcy follows her down the hallway and hits the elevator button. “A blip? What does that mean?”

“It means someone’s at the Avengers facility upstate, the one that hasn’t been used in _ years _. Whoever it is, with their tech and my data, we could solve this thing.”

* * *

Steve paces back and forth in front of the columns of holoscreen because he can’t think of anything else to do. He memorizes everything he can from that day, not because he wants to or because he should, but because he can’t do anything otherwise. With every footfall, he thinks of Wanda’s eyes, the clouded look of defeat in her expression as she sat next to Vision’s broken body before fading away. Sam, wings broken, frowning while he searched for some semblance of familiarity in a land that wasn’t his own. T’Challa, the Tree-Man, the Wakandan warriors.

And Bucky.

Bucky, whose last word was _ his _ name. Bucky, who he’d lost before not once, not twice, but now three times. Bucky, who’d rather end fights than start them.

He thinks of Bucky crumbling into nothing just a few yards away from him, and about the fact that there was not a damn thing he could do about it. He thinks about swinging at Thanos with all his might, and touching nothing. He thinks about bleeding on a battlefield of a nation that has just lost its leader, its next in line, half its citizens. He thinks about Ramonda, who, directly or indirectly, has lost her husband and both of her children in the course of two years _ because of him. _

“Steve,” Nat says, leaning into the doorframe that links the study and the kitchen of the compound building they’ve chosen for a temporary residence. He lifts his eyes to her, tries not to look as tired as he feels.

“You’re back early.”

“Capitol Hill is a shambles.” She says it the way you’d say, “Panera is closed,” or “I couldn’t find my keys.” There are bags under her eyes, try as she might to conceal them with makeup. Or maybe Steve’s vision and memory are just that good. “And the executive branch is no better. The line of succession is all fucked up, and because the cabinet is a mishmash of parties, nobody can agree on appointments. Everyone is focused on filling offices and pockets and not on legislation.”

Steve nods, and looks into his hands. “Rhodey helping you on that detail?”

“Yeah.” She slouches into the office chair at the desk, glancing up at the holoscreen in front of him. “If there was a bright side to Ross getting dusted, it’s that he can’t exactly be on our asses anymore.”

“Yeah, don’t get used to it.” He fingers through each screen, looking through the profiles officially transferred from missing persons to the victim database. He can’t bring himself to look back at her - that would force him to acknowledge his - their failure. “You should get some sleep, though. We have a lot of work to do.”

“I’ll sleep when you sleep,” she counters, and he turns when he hears her rising from the desk. “We ought to clear rooms for Bruce and Thor, too. Bruce patched me a signal that said they’re on their way from settling the New Asgardians in a village up in Scandinavia somewhere, with the...with the raccoon, too.”

“Rooms are clear, Nat,” he half-laughs. “Tell them to take their pick.”

“Steve…” She makes sure to intone just how tired she is. Partially from dealing with the government, and partially from dealing with his shit. “Come on.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and means it. “Okay. Let’s see if our keycards to the old rooms still work, huh?”

They’re halfway to the building exit when a loud beeping sounds overhead, and the words SECURITY CONCERN flash red at eye level. Steve frowns. “FRIDAY, what’s going on?”

Black and white footage projects in front of him of a beat-up black SUV rolling up to the security gate at the main entrance. Two women get out of the front seats, and FRIDAY’s facial recognition zooms in on each of them, running them through whatever’s left of SHIELD screening. “Dr. Jane Foster, works in astrophysics with Tony at Stark Industries,” FRIDAY says, of the thin woman wrapped in a cardigan that’s about three sizes too big for her. _ Thor’s Jane _. “And Darcy Lewis, former intern for Dr. Foster.” The second woman wears a thick red beanie and glasses, and her conviction is slightly less forceful than Jane’s, but from the way they meet at the clearance screen at the front gate, Steve is struck with the feeling that there’s no distance the second woman wouldn’t go to back Jane. “There’s a woman in the back, too, Captain, but I don’t have any SHIELD record of her. Public records say she’s a bakery owner from Cardiff.”

“Patch them through, FRIDAY.”

A front-facing angle projects the image of Foster and Lewis looking into the clearance camera, both frowning and folding their arms over themselves for warmth. “Hello? Hello, this is Dr. Jane Foster, independent scientist with Stark Industries in New York - is Tony Stark there?”

“No,” Nat says firmly, looking at Steve like she’s ready to let them in, just like that. “You’re talking to Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers. As far as we know, Tony Stark is still unaccounted for.”

“He gave me verbal access to some of his work. I need to use your facilities to get into his records.” Lewis leans forward into the camera after Foster is done, her brows knitting together in the middle.

“I need to use your facilities to not freeze my ass off, so will you kind of just let us in, please, oh mighty Avengers?”

“Who’s in the car with you?” Steve asks. He can make out a silhouette from one of the security cameras, and then the back door swings open. A small, stout woman with golden hair steps out, her hands up, and Steve’s heart sinks.

“Please,” the woman says, in an accent Steve barely recognizes as Welsh. “I don’t know if you lot qualify as American police, but I’ve heard some pretty awful things. My name is Kelsey Sawyer; I’m a baker.”

“FRIDAY, let ‘em in,” Nat interjects. “Ladies, if you’ll proceed to Building L on the map, it’s straight ahead and to your right with the L on the front. It’s a bit late, so we’ll meet you to help you to your lodgings for the evening, and we can talk business in the morning. Sound fair?”

“Whatever gets me in a heated fucking building,” Steve hears Lewis say under her breath, before she ducks back into the passenger seat.

After all these weeks, Natasha smiles at him, a small smile but a real one, and watches the security gate lift to admit the SUV. “You trust them?” Steve asks, not allowing his tone to betray any doubts he may have - though he’s not sure he _ does _ doubt Jane Foster arriving, as unbelievable as it seems. If he were a good Catholic like he once was, he might believe in this as some kind of sign.

“What choice do we have?” she says with a quizzical look his way. “You telling me you’d say no if I weren’t here?”

He offers her a half a shrug. “Guess I’m glad you’re around to keep me human.”

Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster are taller than he’d imagined, though not by much. There is heartbreak in each of their expressions, and Kelsey Sawyer, huddled behind them, appears both exhausted and unfazed at this momentous meeting. While Jane talks animatedly to Nat about issues that Nat promises they can handle tomorrow, Steve can’t help but study the young woman beside her, and the way she nods along with Jane’s explanations.

Darcy Lewis wears her willpower in her posture. Her heels plant firmly into the ground, and she doesn’t break eye contact when Natasha looks at her. It’s not easy to maintain the gaze of someone like Nat - Steve knows this firsthand. But there is nothing about Darcy that falters, and at a time like this, there is nothing Steve can admire more. And nothing that breaks his heart more.

It’s dangerous to be unwavering at rock bottom. Gives rock bottom the opportunity to be worse.

“Is...what about Thor?” Jane says, and Nat glances back at him, shaking him from his thoughts.

“He’s alive,” he says quickly, and relief washes quite viscerally over her and Darcy. “He and Bruce are settling the people of Asgard into a secure location up in Norway. They - ” He shakes his head, thinking about how absurd it will be for him to tell them that a walking, talking, _ shooting _ raccoon is coming home with them, the awkwardness of Jane and Thor’s relationship notwithstanding. “You’ll probably see them tomorrow. Right now, I think it would be good for all of us to get some sleep.”

“I can show you to our quarters,” Nat volunteers. “You...pretty much have the pick of the compound.”

“Goody,” Darcy says, deadpan.

“Night.” Steve nods to the four of them, and leaves out the side entrance, taking the long way through the small park to get back to his apartment.

He likes the solitude of walking at night. Even in upstate New York, there’s something magical about being alone with the world turning somewhere without you. He passes the bench where he and Sam caught up after their runs, the tree where Tony had insisted on hanging Christmas ornaments, and then had installed a weather regulator in the square to make real snow that didn’t ruin them.

He can hear the women talking across the way, Jane firing rapid questions at Natasha, and Nat answering as quickly and diplomatically as she can. He smiles. If she hadn’t gone into espionage, Nat would’ve made a hell of a difference in the policies of the world the way it once had been. She has, though. After the fallout from SHIELD, and now, with half the lawmakers dissipated into nothing…

He’s not sure if it’s the visitors - if some of that unwavering of Darcy’s or some of that persistence of Jane’s is rubbing off on him - but he goes to bed and closes his eyes and thinks about what hope used to mean. And he wonders if it’s too late to hope for more.


	2. ||two||

_ chances are we will sink quietly back _

_ into oblivion without a ripple _

_ we will go back into the face _

_ down through the mortars as though it hadn’t happened _

_ -“Clay Out of Silence” - C.K. Williams _

For the first time in weeks, Darcy wakes to the muffled sound of music. She blinks up at the unfamiliar ceiling, remembering where she is and how she got here.

The Avengers. Captain America and Black Widow. Jane,  _ safe _ .

She sits up in a bed that’s comfortable but a little stiff, one that clearly hasn’t been slept in in years. She remembers hearing about a battle in Berlin, the rift between Iron Man and Captain America that rendered the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes, all but nonexistent. This facility, especially the dormitories where SHIELD operatives or Stark agents might have lived, must have been empty for years before the Exodus.

Which doesn’t explain the music coming from somewhere outside her room.

Scratch that. Which doesn’t explain the unmistakable chorus of “What’s Up?” by the 4 Non Blondes (1992) coming from somewhere outside her room.

When she gets a pair of pants on and makes her way to the window, she physically cannot keep herself from gaping open-mouthed at the honest-to-goodness spaceship that’s hovering above what she can only assume is a helipad at the top of the building across the way. It looks much the way you might expect a spaceship to look, if a little more beat-up. More Millennium Falcon than Imperial Destroyer. The thrusters expel air slowly, until it finally touches down on the roof.

She slides into a pair of sneakers and grabs her new keycard, then goes into the hallway to pound on Jane’s door next to hers. Jane answers, looking miraculously showered and well-rested. Her hair lies in a slightly messy braid tossed over her shoulder, but she looks significantly better than the previous day.

“You saw it?” Jane asks, her eyes wide and on the verge of Science.

“Heard it first.” She glances toward the outside again, then back to Jane. “It could be Thor. Do you want to - ?”

Jane has her by the hand and tugs her down the hall before she can finish.

Darcy’s not sure what exactly to feel as they wait in the elevator, Jane all but vibrating with energy beside her. The last twenty-four hours have been almost more tumultuous than the last two weeks, and she cannot deny the envious twist of her gut that Jane may be about to reunite with her estranged lover. She knows she shouldn’t be jealous - hell, she’s thrilled to see Thor herself after all this time - but...it’s lonely. She wants a big reunion moment, wants to be caught in someone’s arms while sappy music plays in the background.

Like every girl she’s ever met, she wants to be held in the rain by someone she thought she’d never see again.

Not by someone. By the man who puts his skinny freezing feet on her in the middle of the night and steals all the blankets. By the man who memorized her birthday after the first real date they’d gone on, and the names of both her parents and her brother. She wants Ian to hold her, because two weeks without being in his arms or smelling his stupid grandpa sweater or feeling him inside her is two weeks too many.

When they make their way outside, Kelsey is already standing at the top of the stairwell to the roof, nursing a cup of coffee in a robe that she must have packed for their trip. It’s soft-looking and yellow with light blue trim, and it makes Darcy love her that much more.

Steve and Natasha are a few yards closer to the ship, shielding their eyes with their hands. From the looks of it, they’ve been up for a while - Steve in his skin-tight gray shirt and his hair carefully slicked back out of his eyes and Natasha with a sports tank and a bun tied above her head. Natasha is still panting, propping her free hand on her hip to catch her breath. Nobody dares to move until the hatch at the front of the ship pops open.

And a fucking raccoon walks out.

“What’n fresh hell is happening right now?” Kelsey says, just loud enough for Darcy to hear. It seems like the only thing keeping any of the three of them from losing their shit is that no one else is.

“Who’re the newbies?” the raccoon says,  _ says _ , out  _ loud _ , with its  _ mouth. _ In some kind of sloppy, broken New York accent.

Steve looks calmly at the raccoon, and nods to the three of them. “Rocket, this is Jane, Darcy, and Kelsey. They’ve never met a talking raccoon, so if you could just take it easy.”

“Take it easy?” Rocket says, eyeing Darcy suspiciously, if you could call it that. “I ain’t a damn raccoon, alright? Name’s Rocket, so get used to it, sweetheart.” He saunters past her and down the stairs, as though he owns the damn place. Stranger things, Darcy supposes.

“Steve,” comes a soft voice from the doorway, and Bruce Banner, a physics professor Darcy vaguely remembers from early on in her Culver days, half-stumbles out, looking much more cautious and gentle than she’s ever heard of the Hulk being. “Nat - hey.” He hugs the two of them in turn, and then, with a flash of recognition Darcy doesn’t expect, lights up when he sees Jane. He makes a beeline for her, shaking her hand vigorously “Dr. Foster - what are you doing here?”

“Trying to help,” Jane says, but she’s standing on her toes to see behind Bruce. “I, uh, I’ve been working with Tony Stark these last few months, and...I don’t know, I might have some data that can help with…” She waves her hands around noncommittally, still not looking at him.

A man looking very different from the Thor she and Jane once knew steps out at last, his hair cut close in the sides and his expression stony and unyielding. Darcy expects him to soften when he finally spots Jane, Steve and Natasha parting like the seas, and she might be half right. He doesn’t soften completely, but his eyes change - something Darcy can’t place.

Jane advances, shouldering past Bruce and between Steve and Natasha, her mouth agape, eyes already misting. She’s almost in a full run by the time she reaches Thor -

She nearly leaps into him, and he catches her a moment late, she bounces against his chest before he can close his arms around her. No one pretends not to watch her bury her cheek in his neck, or her lean up to whisper to him. Thor holds her, his entire body stalling a moment before he lets his head drop into her shoulder, and he breathes her in, pulling her close. It’s then that Steve and Natasha choose to avert their eyes, glancing at the ground before turning back, making their way to the stairwell. They put their heads together with Bruce, muttering on the way down.

“Come on,” Darcy tells Kelsey, and loops their arms, leading her downstairs. She and Thor will have time for a reunion of their own later. “You sleep okay?”

“About as well as you can, knowing there are a couple of people who could snap my neck with a click of their fingers sleepin’ in the same building as me.” She sips her coffee, looking positively unflappable as she makes her way down the stairs beside Darcy. “You reckon this lot eat breakfast? It’s been too long since I’ve made a proper meal, and you all could use one.”

“I think that would be a really welcome treat, Kels. Especially when everyone figures out that your cooking is  _ your _ secret power.” She elbows Darcy playfully in the ribs, full-on grinning now.

“If you’d told me last month I’d be serving superheroes a full British breakfast, I’d’ve called you mad. Particularly because I won’t have the laverbread to make it a proper Welsh do.”

“Need someone to show you around the kitchen?” Natasha says, materializing beside them so quickly they don’t have time to notice her slowing down to match their pace. She has a small but good-natured smile on her face, something warm in her eyes that Darcy hasn’t seen in a long while, not since before the Exodus. “Or...keep things moderately normal, considering you just watched a talking raccoon walk out of a spaceship?”

“Normal would be nice.” Darcy tries to smile back, at the woman she knows as one of the most dangerous human beings on the planet,even before all the disappearance. “You know, it’s...a pretty amazing thing for you to have us here, not even knowing we were coming.”

Natasha shakes her head, a sadness rolling into her eyes that mixes with the gentle thing that was there before. “You don’t have to thank me. Not for that.” She’s looking somewhere far off, with an expression that only people who are wishing wear. “The way things are right now, I think Al Capone could walk onto the compound and I’d probably make him coffee and offer him a room.” She blinks back at Darcy, nose scrunching as her lips turn back up. “I’m glad it’s you guys and not Al Capone, though.”

Darcy hears herself laugh. “Thanks for that. Means a lot.” She nods to the raccoon, a few paces ahead of the pack, like their strange little leader. “So...am I allowed to ask how he...like, what the deal is?”

Natasha follows her glance, her shoulders rising and falling in undisappointed defeat. “I don’t think he likes talking about it. He’s got a lot of people...doesn’t know where they are or if they were safe. When it happened, he had this friend, a tree kind of thing - disappeared right in front of him. He was all Rocket had.”

Sympathy settles in Darcy’s stomach, outweighed only by her angered curiosity. There’s so much she wants to ask - why which people disappeared, why the rest didn’t, how it could happen all over the world at the same time. Why Ian, or Erik, or William, or Therese? Why at all? It’s not the right place or the right time, but there will never be anything right about watching Ian become specks in the air. “Natasha, what  _ happened _ ?”

She won’t tell Darcy until they’re sitting in the study, away from Kelsey in the kitchen and Steve and Bruce in the lounge and Thor and Jane and Rocket in the lab. For good reason.

It is not a massacre. It is not a tragedy, or a slaughter, or a decimation. It is not a disappearance. Half the universe is gone beyond dead, beyond saving. A man who is not a man chose to play God and snapped his fingers and took away one half of everything.

Natasha tells her it’s more than half, though, because of the pilots who disappeared while flying planes, the drivers gone from cars, collateral damage that is both completely by chance and completely unavoidable. 

Darcy ekes out the worst part on her own - that this is something that may not be fixable. Aliens named Thanos notwithstanding, how do you turn back time to save the people who’ve been killed in the wrong place at the wrong time? How do you justify designating resources to efforts that may never make a difference?

And on the flipside, how do you move on?

After Natasha finishes letting her down as gently as she can, Darcy fiddles with the ring on her finger, rolling her thumb across the sapphire and spinning the stone around and around and around. She can’t picture taking it off.

“That’s it?”

Natasha frowns.

“We just...let go? Cut our losses? Or...what?”

“This is what we have for now, Darcy. It’s almost a miracle that you and Jane found us, with the things you both can contribute to...figuring out how to fix all this. There are so many people who we still can’t account for. If they are alive, somewhere, we need to be here and be working towards some kind of a solution.” She’s swallowing her tears, not making eye contact with Darcy. “We’re supposed to be the world’s greatest defenders. If we couldn’t do that, we have to do  _ something _ .”

Darcy looks into her hands. “Trust me, you need Jane  _ way _ more than you need me.”

“Mm-mm.” When she looks up again, Natasha is staring straight at her. “I’ve read your file. And Thor’s told us all the story about the taser, multiple times.” She’s leaning forward now, elbows digging into her thighs, with possibly the most serious face on Darcy’s ever seen. “You’ve been known to find unconventional solutions for unconventional problems, Darcy Lewis. As long as you’re here, I don’t ever want to hear you discredit yourself that way again.” She pauses, then leans back with her eyes still forward, waiting as if to fill the silence with an unspoken promise. 

The silence breaks with Kelsey’s knuckles rapping on the doorway. “Breakfast is ready whenever you lot are.”

“Thanks, Kels,” Darcy says, with the weight of knowing she’ll have to tell Kelsey the truth about the snap all the way in her bones. She looks back at Natasha, offering a hand to help her up and not expecting her to take it. But she does.

Darcy is on autopilot eating breakfast, staring straight ahead through the open window, out into the wide, yellow fields around the perimeter of the base. She usually loves anything Kelsey can put on a plate, but today, anything passing her lips tastes gray, nothing. She pushes her plate away after a few bites and excuses herself to her room, not caring too much for how dramatic it all must come off.

She flops onto her bed, intending to cry but finding that her eyes can’t well up anymore. The heavy lump in her throat tells her she should be bawling like a baby, and so do the shuddering gasps that wrench from her chest, but her cheeks don’t feel the familiar splash of tears that usually are coming strong by now.

A small framed picture of her and Ian at his aunt’s house sits miserably on her nightstand where she’d propped it up before going to sleep the previous night. She looks at it, and knows that, in a very Ariana Grande twist of fate, she has no tears left to cry.

After two weeks of chasing leads, trying to survive, figuring out how to cross an ocean, hunting down Jane...and the plan for getting everyone back is at exactly Square One.

The plan for getting Ian back.

She’s about to close her eyes, try and go back to sleep so she can pretend it’s a dream for just a few more minutes, or maybe a few more hours, when someone taps gently on her door. It takes most of her effort just to push out of bed and make her way to answer it.

Thor stands on the other side, bracing himself on his forearm against her doorframe. “Darcy,” he says, mustering up a smile in spite of the sadness in his voice. “Darcy Lewis. I never thought I would see you again.” He cracks, and sweeps her into his arms, hugging her close.

“Hey, buddy,” she breathes, throwing her arms around him too. He’s not the Thor she remembers, his hair and beard shaven close, and there’s something different about his eyes - something not quite right. “Fuck. It’s good to see you. Wish it was under better circumstances”

“And you.” He pulls away after a long moment, shifting his gaze over her shoulder. “May I come in? I...admit I am ashamed that I haven’t made the time to speak to you since we landed. It has been a perilous journey in many ways.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” She takes a step back, and he walks in cautiously, glancing around like he’s afraid of breaking something. “I’d ask you how things have been, but I’ve got a feeling it’s the same as everything else around here.”

“I’m afraid so.” He sits in the standard issue gray armchair beside the bed, folds his hands in his lap, and for the first time since she laid eyes and taser on him, looks kind of pathetic. Not that she probably looks any different. “Asgard is gone. I had a sister. She tried to kill me. Father died, Loki and Heimdall are gone. Half my people…” One hand balls into a fist over the other, and something between defeat and anger flashes in his eyes. “...those who are left are settled now, safe. And in good hands.”

“That’s good,” Darcy squeezes out, and sits opposite him on her bed, tucking her feet beneath her. She doesn’t miss the way “in good hands” chokes out of him a little. “Am I allowed to ask about where your people are?”

“A Norwegian port. It is rather a large adjustment for many of them, I’m sure, but we are an adaptable people. I believe wholeheartedly that they’ll turn out alright.”

“And you?” She sees how the question catches him off guard. He can’t seem to make direct eye contact, and his knee begins to jiggle. “You think you’ll turn out okay?”

“I…” His voice breaks again, a deep crease forming between his brows. If it had been any other time and she wasn’t already disillusioned with the world, Thor’s shakiness would scare the hell out of her. “I don’t know.”

A deep pit begins to form in Darcy’s stomach, and she feels like she’s begun to understand why he looked so different when he was holding Jane. She can deny it all she wants, but there’s something in her that knows the look in his eyes when Jane ran to him was wrong. She won’t tell Jane - not yet - and even once the dust settles Jane may realize that being with Thor the ways they were before...isn’t the same. He’s not the Thor they remember, and she’s not the Jane he remembers. It’s been nearly five years since the last time they’d seen each other.

And people change.

“Me neither,” she says, instead of telling him all this. She reaches over to squeeze his hand, and his leg stops bouncing. “Hey. Things are crazy right now. It’s okay to feel fucked up.”

“It’s certainly difficult  _ not _ to feel so.” He allows some semblance of a smile to cross his lips. “And I am sorry - terribly sorry - for your loss as well, Darcy. I cannot help but feel that...I might have prevented this.”

“Dude.” She gently smacks his elbow, not that it would really hurt him if she tried. “This is  _ not  _ your fault. You can’t expect yourself to come out perfectly on top every time shit goes down. Crazy douchebags who set out to play god and kill everyone in sight are the ones who can suck shit.”

“It’s funny. I once was not unlike Thanos. We made ourselves out to be gods, claimed our powers gave us the authority to ravage the realms we thought primitive to our own. I may be able to fool myself that it was my father’s influence, his ideals for a perfect Asgard...but my arrogance and my pride have amounted only to my people seeking refuge so far from home…”

“Thor.” She squeezes down hard, tilting her chin toward her chest. He glances up, his gaze full of regret and shame and anger. And vulnerability. “Whoever you were when you were younger, with Asgard and Odin and everything else in the Nine Realms, that’s not who you are now. You can’t change what happened to Asgard, and you couldn’t have seen this coming a million miles away. But who you are now, you’ve  _ chosen _ to protect people and to do good. From what I’ve heard about this guy and what I know about you? You’re no Thanos. Not even close.”

A soft, almost shocked breath escapes him, and the anger fades slowly from his face. He lifts his lips in a smile that’s sincere now, touched even. “You are a good friend, Darcy. The word ‘honored’ does not begin to capture how pleased I am merely to know you.”

“The feeling’s mutual, bud.” She sighs, and uncrosses her legs from under her, pushing off the bed to stand. He follows suit, raking a hand back through the short hair there. “Let’s go get some air. Maybe you can introduce me to my first ever talking raccoon.”

* * *

“How you holding up?” Nat asks him, pinky lifted as she swirls her drink in her hand. He looks enviously down at it, wishing whiskey would do more for him than just burn on his tongue. 

“Good,” he says, and leans back into the couch, draping both arms over the headrests. 

Across the room, Darcy, Kelsey, and Rocket attempt to explain multimedia devices to Thor, who watches with rapt eyes as Darcy and Rocket compare their iPod and Zune at increasing volumes. Jane is at Tony’s pinball machine with Bruce, reminiscing on their days at Culver and the pros and cons of each of their graduate programs.

Steve is too tired to lift himself off the couch, but Nat always seems determined to get him into something when they’re not desperately researching how to reverse the end of the world. 

“I got a radio transmission from Rhodey in D.C. today.” Steve’s head snaps up, his eyes raising to meet Nat’s. She looks afraid to get hopeful, but there’s light in her expression. “He’s trying to work with Congress to get phone lines back up. It comes down to who’s trying to charge people for their usual unlimited plans. Like anyone can think about paying data overages right now.”

“It’s a step, though. And a good idea on his part.”

Nat drops into the seat beside him, kicking an ankle up over her knee and swishing her drink in its glass. “It’s good, having people around again.”

He grins teasingly at her. “You gettin’ sick of me so soon?”

“Gettin’ sick of always being surrounded by testosterone. Now the playing field’s evened out a little bit.” She eyes the room, her demeanor unreadable. And then, when her gaze reaches Darcy and Rocket elbowing each other out of the way to show Thor the different features of their music players, her lips turn up just so. “You know what? I think you and I have had enough misery to last a couple lifetimes.”

“Yeah?”

She drains the rest of her glass and gets up, yanking him to his feet. “Move this couch back, yeah? I’ve got an idea.”

He shoots her a curious look, but does as he’s told. The squealing of the couch’s legs against the tile gets everyone else’s attention, and soon enough the room falls silent.

“Don’t just stand there,” Nat says, and he can hear a smile in her voice as she scrolls through a holoscreen she’s pulled up, pressing down somewhere in the middle. Surprisingly, she turns to Rocket with fond eyes. “You ever listen to the oldies?”

Even Steve can tell that the raccoon is flabbergasted. “Hell do you mean oldies?”

The deep and lively drumbeats that he vaguely recognizes as the Ronettes come over the speakers, and one painful, Sam Wilson-shaped pang flares in his chest. He pushes it down with a smile when he sees Nat pulling Darcy off the couch and twirling her in a circle. She reaches out her free hand to him, dipping her chin with a familiar smile.

“Oh, no. You’re not getting  _ my  _ two left feet out there.”

“You remember I could kill you in your sleep?”

He rolls his eyes and falls into step, ducks so she can spin him under her arm. Slowly but surely, the rest of the party goes to join them - Kelsey curtseys to Thor, and he’s happy to accept her offer to dance; Jane laughingly approaches and shimmies her shoulders at Darcy, who shimmies back, still in Nat’s grasp; Bruce bobs his head awkwardly to the music, looking like a cautious duckling as he follows in Jane’s stead.

And at last, even Rocket lets himself sway back and forth, grumbling something about Quill’s music being better.

Nat releases both of them to pull Jane towards her, so Steve spins Darcy around as politely as he can, and she tilts her head with the music, her dark locks falling in front of her face. He watches her mouth the words to the song, and she lifts her arm so he can spin, too.

“You classically trained?” she says, smiling, just loud enough for him to hear her over the music.

“Got deployed right before my Juilliard application could go through,” he jokes back, and lowers her into a dramatic dip. If he’d tried doing something like that before the serum, all those years ago, he’d go toppling over with her, assuming a girl like her would even agree to dance with him.

When he pulls her up, she nearly tumbles into his chest.

“Sorry,” he says, and feebly tries to steady her feet beneath her, smiling sheepishly. “I, uh...guess I’m not used to havin’ a partner.”

He means it lightly, but the smile fading from her face feels like a stone sinking into his gut. She tries to hide it, guiding her eyes to the middle of his chest, straight ahead for her, but that soft deadness doesn’t leave her eyes.

“It’s okay,” she says, almost too quietly to hear. And then, wetly, she pulls away, inching out of his arms and bringing her sleeve up to her nose. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I just - I really fucking miss somebody.”

That’s when he sees a small blue sparkle on her left hand. 

_ Oh.  _

“No, no, don’t be sorry. You got every right to feel the way you feel.” He chews his lip, trying to look away as she wipes her face. Nat is almost grinning, with her arms around Jane’s shoulders, twisting each other back and forth to the song. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her smile like that. Even before Thanos. She is...one of the hardest working people I know.”

“Are you guys, like…?”

“No!” he says, maybe a little bit too quickly, and she sees that, a smile rising to her face as well. “No, I mean - Nat’s great. She’s my best friend. It’s just not like that.”

“You mean you haven’t even thought about it? Not even once?” She prods him in the side, and he flinches, unable to help the laugh that escapes. “C’mon, even  _ I’ve  _ thought about Jane...once or twice.”

“She kissed me once. We were in character.”

She starts to laugh, now, too, a deep laugh, head cocked back with her hand pressed to her stomach. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry, when you say ‘in character,’ it sounds like you were in  _ Hamlet _ together or something, and now I’m imagining the two of you onstage in leotards.”

“Who the hell wore leotards in  _ Hamlet _ ?” he says, feeling genuine laughter bubbling up from somewhere in his chest, too. “That’d be a fun business pitch, like Avengers on Ice.”

She presses a hand against him, head thrown back as she too bursts into laughter, her entire body quaking with it. “Steve - oh my God - ” And then she  _ snorts _ , bending forward at the waist and propping herself up with the hand on his front. “ - fucking - I’m sorry, like if the whole saving the world thing doesn’t work out, you can  _ totally _ lead a troupe of ice dancers on a cross-country tour.”

“I’ll consider it,” he says, putting on a serious face. The song changes then, something sweeter and slower, and the hand that had been against him lifts palm-up. She seems tired, and the laughter fades from her face, but there’s still something gentle in her demeanor. He takes her hand, and pulls her near him for one more dance. “You’ve thought about Jane, then, huh?” The question comes out softly, trying his best to keep things light.

“When we first met.” She cocks her head and her eyes twinkle with fondness at the memory. “I was at Culver finishing up my GE, thought I’d take astronomy for fun, because it’s one of those classes you never really think about taking. The first day of class, I imagine this ninety-year-old, like, McGonagall Dr. Foster - McGonagall is a Harry Potter professor, badass but kind of that, like, silver-haired High Priestess-y figure - and then when I get to class, here’s this tiny ball of genius who just bursts into a lecture, wrapped up in a scarf and running on espresso, and looking like Keira Knightley doing it.” She bites down on her thick lower lip, the smile spreading again. “I wanted to make out with her for about twenty minutes into the class. And then I wanted to make out with her brain for the last...nine years since I’ve known her.”

“She’s been a good friend to you.” Although it’s been barely a day, he sees it, in the way Jane glances over at Darcy when Darcy’s not looking. Even when Jane looks like she’s running on empty, it’s Darcy she turns to for reassurance and security. “I’m glad you’ve got her.”

“Me too,” Darcy says, swaying with him to the tender beat. “And I’m glad you’ve got Natasha.”

He smiles. He keeps her close for the rest of the song, but when the final note, a gentle fade of the doo-wop, rings out to rest, she’s the one to let go first.

“Thank you,” he tells her, and lets his hands fall to his sides. “All this - ” he looks out to everyone else in the lounge, Jane and Nat laughing, tangled in some complex dance move, Kelsey showing Thor a waltz, Bruce and Rocket watching along and smiling real, true smiles. “ - it means a lot. Reminds us, I guess…”

“We’ve got something to live for.” When he meets her gaze again, she’s far away, not looking at him or anyone else in the room. Her fingers twist numbly at her ring, and she doesn’t seem sad or happy or anything, really, that he can name.

But he recognizes that look in her eyes. He's felt it a million times.

“Yeah. Yeah, we do.”


	3. ||three||

_ But I know there are rules that cannot be broken. _

_ Perhaps a name was changed. _

_ A small mistake. Perhaps _

_ a woman I do not know _

_ is facing the day with the heavy heart _

_ that, by all rights, should have been mine _

_ \- “In November” - Lisel Mueller _

Natasha holds a movie night a few days later, everyone packed together on the U-couch wrapped in blankets and robes. Rocket pretends he couldn’t be more disgusted about spending an hour and a half tucked in between Darcy and Jane, but the moment the opening score comes on, his ears flatten and Darcy watches his eyes grow wide with the sudden shift to the found footage style on the screen.

She hears Steve chuckle on her other side, shifting so his arms stretch over the head of the couch. It still strikes her funny that the man she’s learned about from the textbooks in all her American History classes is sitting beside her - and that he’s kind, likes hazelnut creamer in his coffee, and can’t forgive the Dodgers for moving to California.

He also flinches at cheesy horror movie violence, and throws his head back in laughter at the comedic genius of “Officer, we have had a _ doozy _of a day.”

In spite of the madness that is the end of the world and her new superhero neighbors, Darcy finds herself feeling oddly comfortable at the Avengers facility. She, Jane, Kelsey, and Bruce spend most of their time putzing around the lab, Jane tinkering with anything FRIDAY can help her access. Kelsey mostly forces everyone into taking the snacks she brings in, and calls in the last line of defense - Natasha - if anyone refuses to break. Darcy, naturally, asks FRIDAY about any and every survival situation Tony Stark’s gear can handle while Bruce makes notes on the holoscreen. He insists that her questions are helpful - anything is science if you only remember to write it down.

She’s pretended the last few days not to notice how often Bruce and Jane put their heads together, and how Thor’s visits to the lab slowly start to dwindle. When she finds time to sit alone with him over coffee, which still proves to be his favorite Midgard drink, he doesn’t seem too hurt by it. Not that that’s what they ever choose to talk about - he tells her about the planets he’s traversed since last they met, alien beings of all shapes, sizes, and colors, galaxies whirring by so fast, he’d been reminded of the rainbow bridge.

When they get to sore subjects of the past, he lets himself ruminate a minute, wearing a distant look that she knows well. At these points, she usually gives him that minute, sips her coffee, and gets interested in her cuticles.

She sneaks a look at him across the couch, letting Natasha prop her feet up in his lap. He watches on with mild amusement, looking more at his friends than at the TV. He meets her eyes and smiles. She smiles back.

Before she can turn her eyes back to the movie again, though, FRIDAY’s voice comes over the loudspeakers. “Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers, I’m sorry to interrupt - I’m receiving a signal from Colonel Rhodes. Would you like me to patch him through?”

In spite of the unmistakable surprise flashing over her face, Natasha recovers first. “Yeah. Put him through.”

A flicker of blue light flashes up the holoscreen, stretching across the front of the paused TV. Slowly, pixels rolling up the screen, the torso of a tall, thin man begins to materialize, his expression cautious but hopeful. “Nat? Steve? You see me okay?”

“Yeah,” Natasha says, and her brows knit together. “How are you getting this transmission through? I thought cell towers were still down.”

“It took a little persuasion, but the folks in DC have started coming to an agreement about open communication across the country.” He waves what looks like a thumb drive in front of him. “I’m en route back to you right now- can you access Veronica’s satellite? You program her with my encryption, we can get full service back to half the country by morning.”

“And those of us with international mobiles?” Kelsey says abruptly - and Darcy feels her eyes and the eyes around her snap to meet Kelsey’s. Her soft brown gaze, usually warm and kind and motherly, blazes with passion now, her brows set in a deep frown. “We’ll have access, Colonel?”

Rhodes looks around a little anxiously, as if to ask who exactly he’s speaking to, but, very diplomatically, lowers his head into a slow nod. “Signal will be up for any and every phone from Maine to the Carolinas by nine. After that, it’s just a matter of picking up the connection.” His tongue pokes into his cheek. “I’d keep a TV station on, just in case they get a broadcast up.”

“I’ll get on Veronica now,” Natasha says, getting her feet beneath her.

“There’s one more thing,” Rhodes adds quickly, his eyes darting up to meet Natasha’s. “I, uh...I found Pepper. I’m bringing her to base with me.”

“Tony.” The name comes like a stifled exhale from Steve’s lips, as though he’s been punched in the gut. Darcy does her best not to notice his hand reaching up to scrape anxiously at his beard, or the way he loses color at hearing Pepper’s name. He releases a breath he’s been holding, and leans forward with his elbows pressed into his knees. He opens his mouth, and then thinks better of it. His eyes are closed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, when he does choose to speak. “What’s your ETA?”

“Should be there around eight. Lookin’ forward to meeting the new recruits.”

“Thanks, Rhodey,” Nat says, and the blue of the holoscreen disappears. She disentangles herself from the blanket that had been seated on her lap, and without another word, strides into the study, perching herself at her desk and beginning to type.

Darcy pushes off the couch, offering Jane a hand to pull her up. “Come with me to grab my phone? Just in case.”

Jane stands, a solemn look on her face that suggests Darcy may not like the answers to her questions, but follows.

Darcy hasn’t heard from her parents or her brother since the Exodus because regardless of the situation with the phone company, she turned her cell off almost the moment Kelsey stumbled into her arms and told her about William and Therese. It’s almost safer not knowing for certain. She still keeps her notebook tight at her side, but there are names there she’s not sure she’ll ever be ready to touch.

_ Mom. _

_ Dad. _

_ Corey. _

Below, in a smaller print, like she was afraid of even writing them down, are her sister-in-law and the twins. _ Leslie. Zoe. Julianna. _Now, as she scoops her phone from the bottom of her duffel bag and holds the side button to switch on, she pictures Corey and Leslie in their favorite knit sweaters. Zoe’s gap-toothed smile as she turns upside-down into a handstand. Juli with ribbons around her pigtails, overalls that are too big for her.

The black screen flashes white, and then prompts her for her passcode. She tries to ignore her lockscreen - their last family photo from Hanukkah in Tahoe. In it, Ian towers over her, wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, and he and Corey have their eyes closed in frozen laughter. In the previous picture, Leslie had tried putting her arm around Darcy’s waist and had grabbed her boob by accident. She’s tempted to smile at the memory, and swiping her finger over the numbers - 061813 - her anniversary, unlocks her phone. 

Jane takes a seat on Darcy’s bed, watching her. “Anything?”

“No service still. Couple of emergency alerts, but...no.”

She isn’t sure whether to feel increasingly anxious or relieved - if and when the signal comes, will someone be on the other line at the kitchen in the little brick-lined house outside Philly? Will her parents answer? Will they call? Will Corey answer, and will she hear the voices of his wife and daughters clamoring behind him?

Or will there be silence, like the last two and a half weeks?

“I guess we just...wait,” she breathes, and settles herself into a spot beside Jane on the bed, leaning her head into her tiny friend’s shoulder. “Have you...I mean, you’ve been monitoring Tony Stark’s tech - ?”

“I haven’t heard from anyone.” Jane’s voice comes out clear and curt, as if she’s already made up her mind about the people she loves. From what Darcy can understand, Jane and her mother have a tumultuous relationship beyond Jane’s scientific globe-traversing - she remembers stories about a girl Jane had dated in the latter months of graduate school, and Jane coming home over the winter break to find her things tossed haphazardly on the lawn of her childhood home.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy tells her, and she doesn’t know how to explain what she’s sorry for. Jane turns to her, her face hard and lined with resolve at first, and then she softens.

“Me, too.”

They hold each other for a few wordless, vulnerable minutes. When they let go, Darcy takes the time to scrub her streaking mascara from her cheeks, and runs a towel under the sink for Jane to do hers.

“This really sucks,” Jane laughs, and takes the towel to run it over the black smudges under her eyes.

“Yeah. But, I mean…” She nods toward the door, shaking her head in disbelief. “Before that phone call, we were essentially Netflix and chilling with the Avengers. How many other regular assholes like you and me get to do crazy shit like that?”

“You’re no regular asshole, Darcy.” Jane scoots off the bed and leads her back into the hallway. “You’re damn brilliant.”

“We all know _ you’re _damn brilliant, dude. That’s why we’re here.” She thinks back to her conversation with Natasha in the study. And while she still doesn’t feel like her batshit taser-first-ask-questions-later method of tackling problems can really match up to all the other people around here with PhDs and supermuscles, just being in this place with all these resources...it’s almost enough to give her hope. “We’re going to fix this thing. We’re going to get everybody back.”

As they make their way down the hall and across the lot to the side entrance of the L building, Darcy laces her fingers through Jane’s and squeezes. She doesn’t let go until they step into the lab, where Rocket is telling Kelsey all about a planet called Knowhere, and Jane glides into place beside Bruce at his workstation, pointing something out on the holoscreen.

She plops onto the stool opposite Rocket, and he suddenly takes notice of her, his little black eyes narrowing even further.

“Hey. You got the hookup to put this thing on surround sound?” He lifts up his Zune, which he’s modified with a chunky little plug-in that serves as a tiny speaker.

“Uh, yeah. I can get you an aux cord.”

She’s almost amazed that he actually forks the thing over - that he trusts her with his music - and is halfway to the wall plug-in when it occurs to her.

“Dude, as much as I love the irony of ‘What’s Up?’, you really need to update your selection. There’s a whole _ world _ out there you’re missing out on with this...dad music.”

“It ain’t dad music,” he insists, but in a lower grumble, extends his paw to her. “Lemme see what you got on your i-Thingy.”

* * *

Steve sits diligently by the kitchen window the moment the sun touches the horizon, his ears perked to every minute sound around him. He can hear the distant voices of Jane, Darcy, Rocket, and Bruce in the lab, slightly muffled by pop music of the 1990s echoing over the loudspeakers. Thor, somewhere in the study, scratches at paper with a pen that’s certainly not from anywhere in the facility. And Kelsey takes turns between checking on Nat and poking her head into the lab, and after a while, Steve invites her to sit with him by the window.

“I want to thank you,” he tells her, lifting his eyes to meet hers before sending his gaze back out the window. “For all the food, and for checking in, and...for keeping things together.”

She smiles at her lap, shaking her head. “You’ve given me shelter, and here you are, Captain Rogers, thanking me for keepin’ it from burning down. I’m a mother. And I’m Welsh. We’re persistent bastards, if nothing else.”

“I’d hardly call you a bastard, Mrs. Sawyer.”

“Then just call me Kelsey.”

He smiles. “And you call me Steve.”

The sun dips low, casting ripples of deepening purple at the line where the sky meets the earth somewhere miles away. He swears he sees a jetstream far off, but he hears Kelsey’s voice again, and turns away from the window.

“Who’ve you lost, then?” she asks softly, leaning back into her seat with her hands tucked neatly together in her lap. When he doesn’t answer right away, she tilts her head forward, and reminds him so much of his own mother. “Go on. We’ve all lost somebody in it.”

He straightens up, pushing his palms against his knees. “I watched almost all my friends die there. Wanda, T’Challa, Vision. Sam.” He purses his lips, remembering the taste of Wakandan air going stale, like the world had simply stopped turning. _ Steve? _ “Bucky. My best friend since I was a kid. He was more like my brother.” He doesn’t tell her that it’s not the first time he’d lost Bucky. He doesn’t tell her that it’s Bucky’s face he sees every night when he can’t sleep, Bucky’s voice that he hears in every quiet room.

“My husband and my daughter,” she says, her jaw tightening. “We were making apple cakes, and then they were gone.”

“I’m sorry.” She shrugs it off, like it’s normal that half the world is dead and the rest of them are reeling in their absence. “What’re their names?”

“William. And Therese.” She shifts in her seat, stretching her short legs out in front of her. “I met William at university. He was studying business, and I was hoping to get my MRS to settle down with a bloke with big money.” She chuckles at the memory, shaking her head with fondness in her eyes. “I ended up studying baking at Le Cordon Bleu in London, and the cheeky fuck followed me there, said with his maths and my pastries, we could very well have a business. And we did. Best Welsh bakery in London.”

He smiles. “Sounds like you found your dream.”

“Oh, I did. Got to make my food and boss my husband around to my heart’s desire.” She laughs again, lightly this time, fingering the pendant of her necklace. “You’d like Therese. Little spitfire, she is. Always wanting to have parties at the shop so she could run around posing her knickknacks like a little Beata Heuman.”

He frowns. “Who?”

“Swedish interior decorator. Most kids plaster up McFly or the Backstreet Boys, my little girl puts up Beata Heuman and Joanna Gaines.”

Backstreet Boys he has a vague recollection of - a late 1990s boy band famous for their smooth, high voices and gyrating dance moves - but he doesn’t pretend to know who any of those other people are. He can ask Nat later.

“Therese sounds real special,” he says, and means it. A beat passes, and he wants to reach for her hand, reassure her. “Kelsey, we’re going to do everything we can to get them back. Once we have an idea who all we’ve got on our team, we can...we can work on it.”

She sniffles, and as she opens her mouth, presumably to ask who else exactly they were fucking waiting for to get a jump on setting the universe back in order, a thunderous roar sounds overhead. He looks back out the window, and the jetstream he’d thought he saw in the distance has crested above them into twin trails. Two silhouettes stand in the courtyard, the rising moon bouncing off their metal armor.

Rhodey and Pepper.

The reunion is not what Steve expects. His hackles raised, he half-expects - half-_ wants _ \- Pepper Potts to shout at him, push him, hit him, and the sickly little voice in the back of his head tells him she has every reason to. He almost expects her to make some mention of how _ he _ was the one who tore the team apart, _ he _was the one who kept secrets from Tony and brought the Avengers to an end.

He does not expect her to pull him into her arms and squeeze him to her chest, nor the tearful whisper in his ear that says, “Thank God you’re alright.”

Stunned, he lets her let go, and watches her introduce herself to the new recruits, as Rhodey calls them, poised and graceful and open.

“Where’d you find her?”

“On Capitol Hill, threatening to sue the sitting president over negligence with international communications,” Rhodey says matter-of-factly. “Phone lines will be up tonight, and internet should be back within the week. We’ll be able to take an official census by the end of the month.”

“We?”

Rhodey purses his lips. “US legislation never planned for half the country being wiped out. With so many people gone, I...may be in talks to step up as a representative, and the Avengers may need a liaison with the US again.”

“Congratulations,” Steve says, with some trepidation. He wants to ask what this means for the Accords, for what happens if and when Tony shows up, but the words don’t come. Rhodey claps a hand on his shoulder, like he’s anticipated the question. 

“The world’s too much of a mess right now to think about all that. Let’s work on putting it back together first, Captain Fugitive.”

He smiles. He’s about to start back inside to get Pepper and Rhodey settled into apartments when a sharp chiming rings from across the lot.

Darcy Lewis turns ghost white as she draws her cell phone from her pocket, watching it vibrate in her hand. The air seems to freeze around her, silent, and she lifts her phone to her ear, pressing her thumb to the answer button. 

“Mom?”


	4. ||four||

_ Sometimes when I’m lonely, _

_ Don’t know why, _

_ Keep thinkin’ I won’t be lonely, _

_ By and by. _

_ -“Hope” - Langston Hughes _

“I’m coming with you.”

“Nope,” Darcy sniffles, digging a thick pair of socks out of her duffel bag and yanking them over her feet before tucking them into her boots. Jane’s watching her with her concerned face, arms folded over her chest as she watches Darcy tear apart her borrowed room and set her course for home. “They need you here, for sciencey things to fix the world.” When Jane doesn’t say anything, clearly unmoved, Darcy yanks the zipper on her bag closed and tosses it over her shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I’m only going for a couple of days.”

“Then I’ll be with you,” says Kelsey, who’s materialized at the door and nearly given Darcy palpitations. She shakes her head for what feels like the thousandth time - she’s already taken all the help everyone on this damned base has to give, and driving home, being with her mother who is alone and lost right now, feels like the only thing she really can do on her own.

“They need  _ you  _ here to make sure these workaholics don’t overdose on caffeine and forget how to be humans.” Kelsey steps aside in the doorway to make room for Darcy, and she squeezes past, turning the corner into the hallway without a second backward glance.

Natasha is waiting in the L building with a set of keys to one of the trucks they keep on the lot, expression unreadable as Darcy approaches with her hand extended to receive them. “I don’t like you going alone.”

“I don’t like her  _ being  _ alone at a time like this.” She swallows down her father’s fading - she won’t call it his death, not now, not even in her mind - and grabs the keys and laces the thin lanyard between her fingers. “I won’t park it on the street, don’t worry.”

“It’s not the truck I’m worried about,” Natasha says, a bit forcefully, the bite in her voice not quite halting Darcy, but slowing her down. “I want  _ you _ to be safe. The home you’re going to isn’t the home you remember.”

“None of this is how we remember it, Natasha. But I have to be there for my mom, if only for a couple of days. You can spare me that, can’t you?”

The one who gets her to stop is Rocket, parking himself in front of the door. She’s about to swear, about to make some kind of rude and incomprehensible threat, when he fiddles with a pocket of his little vest and procures her iPod. “Here,” he says, almost sounding defeated as he holds it up to her. “I uploaded some, uh, dad music for you. For the trip down.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, and takes it, shoving it into her pocket. She doesn’t know whether to hug him, or how, really, and settles for a gentle pat on his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

She can tell he doesn’t believe her, his eyes going big when he nods up at her and tries to act like he doesn’t really care, but he smiles at her anyway, ears giving a little pleasant twitch.

“I’ll see you guys in a couple of days. I just have to - I just have to make sure she’s okay.” She turns to the rest of them, Thor and Bruce and Jane watching her with encouraging eyes, Kelsey with her concerned, maternal face. Natasha, Pepper, Rhodes, all silent and unmoving, straight-faced. She can’t help but notice Steve missing, and it scares her the way his absence twinges in her chest.

She walks to the parking garage alone, and the night around her has never felt colder or darker. She doesn’t think about Mom’s shaking voice on the phone, doesn’t think about Dad turning to pieces as they sat and watched the Phillies game, doesn’t imagine Corey and Leslie and Zoe and Juli disappearing at the park or a birthday party or a fishing pond.

Instead she plugs in her old earbuds and dials the volume way up, unable to keep herself from smiling at the Sam Cooke song that pops up when she hits shuffle.

_ I was born by the river in a little tent _

_ Oh and just like the river I've been running ev'r since _

_ It's been a long time, a long time coming _

_ But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will _

She opens the back door first, throwing in her duffel, before lifting herself on the step to enter the front seat. And practically shits herself when she spots a Steve Rogers-shaped shadow filling the passenger seat.

“What the  _ fuck _ are you doing here?” she gasps, her grip going limp on the steering wheel in front of her. “I told Natasha I  _ don’t _ need an escort - ”

“I’m not going to escort you.” He leans into the seat beside her, and as much as she doesn’t want to believe she sees it, there’s an undeniable earnestness in his eyes. “I’m going to drive when you get tired, because it’ll be three by the time we get to your house. I’m going to check into a hotel so you and your mom can have some privacy. And while you’re with her, I’m going to visit the Liberty Bell to laugh at the irony, and then the Philly Museum of Art to get some sketching done.” He pauses, makes eye contact with her, and continues, “Nat thinks I need to get out more.”

She takes a deep inhale, weighing her irritation and barely containing the venom that very nearly spills from her lips, and then forces herself to remember all that he and Natasha have done for her, giving her a place to stay, a job, a way home. “Steve. I appreciate your concern. But if you’re going to ‘get out more,’ can you do me a favor and do it in your own truck, somewhere I’m not going?”

She plants herself in the driver’s seat, resolute, with the keys in her lap and her arms crossed in front of her. Steve watches her cautiously, hands pressed to his thighs, sitting straight up as if he’s forgotten to breathe.

“I know you don’t need anyone to keep you safe,” he says at last, and then directs his soft and honest eyes down toward his feet. “You’ve done a damn good job of taking care of yourself in...this. But we’ve all been a little too alone lately, and if I’m being honest - ” She wishes he would look at her now, just spare her a glance, but his throat bobs as he swallows, and he’s shaking his head. “ - I need to see some of the  _ normal _ that we’re fighting for. Not that the spaceships or aliens or flying suits of armor don’t tell me everything is shot to hell, but…I need to remember there’s a whole world of normal parents and children and spouses in love and...people just being people.”

A shadow passes over his face, and it melts her down just a little. She sighs, sticks the keys in the ignition, and twists. Steve’s head rises slowly as the engine rumbles to life beneath them, frowning up at her, like he doesn’t really expect her to change her mind. She tears her eyes away from him and pulls out of the garage.

“If you’d call my mother normal, Rogers, you’ve got another thing coming.”

She plugs her iPod into the truck’s stereo, and lets Sam Cooke sing them onto the freeway.

He spends the next thirty minutes listening patiently to Rocket’s playlist, fiddling with the seat warmers, and avoiding eye contact with her, like if he doesn’t say anything she’ll just forget he’s sitting next to her on their way to see her mom. After what feels like the twelfth silent press of the little glowing button on the dash, Darcy huffs out a sigh.

“Okay. Would you rather have to fight a dinosaur-sized dog or a dog-sized dinosaur?”

He processes the question for a moment before answering, “Depends on the dog and the dinosaur. Are we talking a rottweiler-sized triceratops? Or, like, a brontosaurus-sized chihuahua?”

She frowns, contemplating it, and rolls her fingers across the steering wheel. “T. Rex-sized chocolate lab or chocolate lab-sized T. Rex.”

“Chocolate lab-sized T. Rex. I’m not about to fight a retriever, they’ve always liked me.” He fiddles with the zipper of his jacket, and for a fleeting moment Darcy notices just how  _ big _ he is, the way he holds himself straight up in his seat and the way his hands look nearly twice the size of hers when they reach across to dial up or down the AC.

For an even  _ more _ fleeting moment, the image of one of those hands jolts into her mind, sliding up her naked chest and closing easily around her throat.

_ No. Nope. Not going there. _

“Darcy?” he asks, and she squirms in her seat, snapping her brain back to attention. “You good?”

“Yeah. Sorry...spaced out. What was the question?”

He eyes for a second, brows furrowing with worry, and then directs his gaze back to the road before them. “Would you rather watch your least favorite genre or only your favorite movie for the rest of your life?”

She scoffs, as if she can pretend she’s putting him to ease, rather than herself. As if she can pretend she wasn’t just thinking about what it would be like...with Steve… “My favorite movie. I’ve already watched  _ Princess Bride _ , like, a million times. What’s a few million more?”

“That one came out in the 1980s, right? It was added to the National Film Registry, I think.”

“As it should be. That movie’s almost more of a national treasure than you, dude.”

“Ouch,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. Her suspicions are confirmed when she glances over, and he’s grinning, hand to his chest in mock offense. “That wasn’t even popular in its time, if I remember right.”

“I mean, objectively, there are probably a few movies that for sure are more national treasures than you.” She puckers her lips in thought. “ _ Miracle on 34th Street, Shawshank Redemption, Boyz n the Hood, Toy Story _ ...as far as popular relevance goes, I’d say you’re pretty behind there, bud.”

“If it’s  _ Toy Story _ making me irrelevant, I guess I can’t complain.”

She fights down a snort. “Does that mean Captain America is a Pixar fan?”

“No,” he counters quickly. “Captain America’s not a fan of much. Steve, on the other hand, doesn’t mind a good cartoon picture.”

“Do you  _ have  _ a favorite movie? From either before or after you...I don’t know, came back?” She wonders what it would be like, coming into a completely new time and having to play catch-up on things that wouldn’t have been instrumental to saving the world. Is that what he’d do on the days the Earth wasn’t being attacked? Or, after a fight, would he put on Netflix to unwind, lie back in his couch, not bothering to take off the uniform?

“You have to tell the truth,” she adds hastily, watching the gears turn behind his eyes. “We all have our favorite movie that we tell people, and our  _ actual _ favorite movie.”

He grins. “Yeah? You including yourself in that?”

“Come on, now, if I told you all my secrets, I wouldn’t have any left for myself.” She looks back at the road, but feels his smile radiating persistently in her direction. “ _ Vertigo _ .  _ Vertigo _ is my public favorite, and I do love it, and it’s a great movie.” She glances over, and he’s got his chin in his hand, like he’s expecting her to go on. “I already told you,  _ Princess Bride _ is my number one. Buttercup is my main bitch.” She reaches across without looking to punch him teasingly in the leg. “I showed you mine, you show me yours.”

“You’re going to make fun of me.”

“Probably.”

He smiles thinly. “ _ Independence Day _ and  _ Casablanca _ .”

This raises Darcy’s eyebrows. “I’m not even going to guess as to which one’s which.”

The smile he wears goes mischievous, and she feels him shift beside her, angling his body toward her and leaning his head into the headrest. “Don’t you want to hear my logic?”

She wets her lips, her gaze purposeful and laser-focused on the road in front of her. “Nope.”

The song on Rocket’s playlist shifts from a bouncy Tiffany beat to something slower, something she has trouble putting her finger on. It’s the kind of song they’d play at a homecoming in the 90s, and the boys and girls would come from either side of the gym to very awkwardly ask each other to dance. It seems a little off at first, with what she knows of Rocket - he’s prickly and rarely shows the tender sides of himself, but some corner in the back of her mind remembers the tree friend Natasha and Thor told her about, and she wonders about him teaching the tree to dance, wonders when you might have time for that kind of thing on your adventures through space.

“Rocket took a shine to you.”

“I like him. He’s like a tiny grumpy grandpa.”

“Talking about music with you has been good for him. He doesn’t trust new people easily. Not that I blame him.”

“Because he’s a talking raccoon?”

He shakes his head. “He lost his best friend, right in front of him. Thor said he’s got other friends, somewhere, he keeps a radio signal open for them, but…” He shrugs, eyes forward. “...gotta be hard not to know. To be alone, waiting.”

She glances across, and sees the muscle jumping in his jaw.

He’s not talking about Rocket anymore.

“He’s not alone now,” she offers him softly, turning down the volume on the song. “He trusts you. And Natasha, and Rhodes.”

“And you.” He looks up at her, and there’s something in his expression, something inexplicable and tender, that makes her heart swell.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s got me.”

* * *

Around one in the morning, Steve makes Darcy pull into the next diner he sees on the side of the road. It’s a dumpy little place, with a sleepy cook covered head-to-toe in patchy tattoos and a waitress who looks like she could have been there for the last sixty years. She takes their orders, barely glancing up to see who exactly is ordering what, and bustles back to the kitchen to holler out the order numbers, causing the cook to nearly jump out of his skin. The only other people in the diner are a businessman nodding off in a corner booth and a young couple so entranced in each other that they hardly bat an eye when Steve and Darcy walk in.

In other words, the threat level here is unmistakably low.

He lets himself ease into the squealing plastic of the booth, spreading out his arms and legs while he has the chance. Darcy sags into her side of the booth. “How you feeling, there, champ?”

“Like a cup of coffee and a massive piece of pie will be just what the doctor ordered. You?”

“Can’t complain. Been a while since I had a nice, long road trip.”

It’s been a while since he was on the lam with Nat, Sam, and Wanda. He doesn’t miss sleeping in shifts in cramped, nondescript cars or jets, or giving aliases at seedy motels, but there was some small, goofy, childish part of him that was reminded of sleeping over at Bucky’s and whispering until the sun cracked the horizon.

“You wanna share with the table, Rogers?”

Even exhausted, she doesn’t miss a beat. He nods his thanks to the waitress when she sets down a steaming mug before him, and lets himself smile at the memory.

“I was just thinkin’ about sleeping over at Bucky’s, when we were kids. We’d go to a ball game during the day, sneak in under the bleachers to watch, and then go to his ma’s for dinner. Lord, could that woman boil a potato.” She grins over her own cup of coffee. “I dunno. There’s somethin’ special about talking to your best friend till the sun comes up.”

“And you couldn’t remember what the hell you talked about on those nights if your life depended on it,” she says, a fondness in her eyes that tells him she knows exactly what he means. “Even if I  _ could  _ handle all-nighters in my ripe old age, I wish Jane would sometimes vary her late-night talk with more sleepover secrets and less astro-Einstein-Rosen-particle stuff. Not that I don’t love the astro-Einstein-Rosen-particle stuff, but there’s only so much of it I can handle on the daily, much less at four in the morning.”

“Hey, easy with the ripe old age stuff. I’m enjoying my last days of being ninety-nine.”

Her mug clatters loudly onto the saucer when it slips from her fingers. The couple across the way lift their heads in search of what’s wrong, but the waitress doesn’t bat an eye. Darcy leans forward, surveying him through squinting eyes, her mouth agape. “You are almost. A  _ hundred _ ? Years old?”

He tries and fails to keep himself from snorting. “You’ll be looking at a bona fide centennial, Lewis. Couple months from now.”

Her face seems to go through a few phases of emotion before suspicion finally sinks in. “Is your...is your birthday in July?”

“Uh-huh.”

“If your birthday is the Fourth of  _ fucking _ July…” He shrugs, able only to offer her a sheepish smile. “Oh my God, I cannot believe you.”

“Like I  _ asked  _ to be born on Independence Day.”

She thrusts her hand into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone, clicking furiously at the screen. “Wait, wait wait. I need your phone number.”

“I’m flattered, Darcy, but I’m really not looking for a relationship right now,” he quips back, folding his hands over his chest.

“Will you just give me your number, you dingus?”

With a little reluctance, he rattles off the digits, and once Darcy’s typed it in, she snickers to herself, as if she’s laughing at her own joke. He feels a ping in his own pocket, the clunky little black box of a phone vibrating against his leg.

“What did you do?” He reads the message:  _ You enormous, Dorito-shaped dork _ .

“Call me. Call me right now, please.”

He narrows his eyes at her, but hits the little green click button anyway. Regret and the corniest song known to man fill the entire diner.

_ Who’s strong and brave, here to save the American Way? _

“No. Nope, turn that shit off - ”

She leans her head back to let out what can only be described as a cackle, one hand clutching her ribs for air, but taps the ignore button so that the music stops. Steve’s positive he’s gone tomato-red, and slinks into his seat, but Darcy’s laugh rings loud and true, and he can spot the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. For some reason, he smiles back.

“Stop it. You’re not that funny.”

“ _ Yes - I - am _ ,” she chokes, burying her face in her hands.

“You are  _ not _ .” His face feels like splitting, he’s smiling so hard.

Before she has the chance to figure out how to stop laughing long enough for a proper response, the waitress returns with her pie and his waffles and sausage, placing their food in front of them wordlessly - not that she needs words to tell either of them how ridiculous they both are. Darcy nearly dying of laughter and Steve trying to compact his large frame by slouching halfway under the table. At last, she says, in the most monotone voice he’s ever heard, “Enjoy your dinner.”

“Thank you,” Darcy wheezes, and drops her forehead to her arm until the shuddering giggles dissipate and the waitress strolls back to the kitchen.

“Jesus Christ, I cannot take you anywhere, can I?”

“Absolutely not. Absolutely not.” Her head rises, and though her cheeks are tearstained and pink with mirth, she presses down a smile and picks up her fork with vigor. “Oh my God. I can’t believe your actual birthday, Captain America’s actual birthday, is the Fourth of July.”

He shakes his head, trying to will his grin into submission, and takes to his waffle with his own fork and knife. “Eat your damn pie, Lewis.”


	5. ||five||

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware of masturbation ahead!  
Please forgive my weird first attempt at male solo masturbation. Love you all!

_ stay away _

_ from the night. _

_ they most likely lurk _

_ in corners of the room _

_ where they think _

_ they being inconspicuous _

_ but they so beautiful _

_ an aura _

_ gives them away. _

_ \- Sorcerer - Jessica Hagedorn _

The dream is cloudy, vague, the only images she can commit to memory coming in blurry flashes one after the next. Jane and Erik’s first Festivus party, mulled wine and Christmas lights in the camper. Ian lying on top of her, smiling hopefully with his chin on her chest. Teaching Juli about Hanukkah and playing checkers with Zoe. Rocket pretending not to like the song she puts on, his head bobbing every so often to the beat.

And then, something that she doesn’t recognize, but feels like a memory.

Being in the arms of somebody much bigger than her, somebody bigger than Ian or her dad or Corey. Someone’s chest warm and wide against her cheek. And the smell of pine, fresh denim, musk. That someone rakes their fingers through her hair, saying her name in a soft rumble.

_ Darcy...Darcy... _

“Darcy?”

She opens her eyes, feels her spine rolling forward from the seat. Her house appears in front of her through a layer of sleep, and she can hear Steve turning the truck off.

“We’re here?”

“Come on, Darce,” he says a bit too gently, and before she can shake herself back into the world of the living, he’s at her door with her duffel bag over his arm. He offers her his hand to help her out of the truck, and she takes it, stumbling out of the cab and into his chest clumsily, wobbling a moment before she can get her feet under her.

“Sorry. Sorry.” She inhales deep, insists on sliding the duffel bag onto her own arm. When he doesn’t return to the driver’s side right away, a small wave of anxiety washes through her. “Are you - you don’t have to walk me up.”

“Is it okay if I do? I don’t want to intrude, I just want to make sure you’re in okay and- ”

She’s about to tell him that her mother is kind of a handful when the front door swings open, and Lori Lewis, wearing the Winnie the Pooh pajama set Darcy had gotten her from Disneyland, steps out with wide eyes and wild hair. 

“Darcy - baby,” her mom gasps, and breaks into a half-run across the lawn to take her daughter into her arms. Darcy feels her duffel slump to the ground, feels herself squeeze her mother back in earnest.

“Mommy,” she hears herself whisper, and then Lori is sobbing into her hair, her hands pawing at Darcy’s arms, her back, her shoulders, like she can’t be sure if it really is her daughter standing in front of her. 

“Oh, baby, you’re safe. You’re okay.” The words leak out of her mother like prayers, and her small body heaves, almost rattles, with her tears. She pulls back, her hazel eyes searching Darcy’s blue ones, and brings her hand to Darcy’s cheek. Lori’s lips split into a cautious smile. “I...I made you spaghetti and meatballs.” Her eyes flash to Steve, as if just noticing he’s there. “Hi. I - I’m Lori.”

“Steve.” She shakes his hand vigorously, holding on so long it makes Darcy squirm a little bit. 

“Thank you for bringing her home. Do you - uh, do you want some spaghetti?”

“Mom, it’s two in the morning,” Darcy starts to say, betrayed only a second later by the low rumble of Steve’s stomach. He grimaces, chewing sheepishly on his lip, but Lori’s mind is made up. She ushers them both into the house, looping her arm through Darcy’s.

The home is essentially how Darcy remembers it before leaving for Culver after high school: baby pictures of her and Corey at the front of the foyer, their family gathering shots in the middle, and aged photos of her grandparents and aunts and uncles in the back. At the very end of the hall, Nono Lewis winks from a polished wooden frame, his arms slung around Nana Lewis’s waist as they lean against a shiny convertible. Steve pauses to glance at a picture of Lori’s father in his Navy fatigues, the serious expression on his face a stark contrast from the rock ‘n roll-loving, part-time Elvis impersonator Darcy remembers.

“He used to sing Love Me Tender to me and Corey to get us to sleep,” she smiles. Lori squeezes her shoulder and lets go of her arm, slipping into the kitchen before her. 

“Elvis Presley was the first musician I heard after waking up from the ice.” He stares at the picture straight ahead, then ducks his gaze to follow Lori into the kitchen. “Nick Fury took me to a cafe to reintroduce me to the world. They were playing Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

“That one you get for a dime a dozen these days,” Lori adds helpfully, shaking her head as she fills two bowls with spaghetti and tops them with meatballs. “Here. I hope you like lots of garlic - that’s how I’ve always made it for Darcy.”

“Very much, ma’am. Thank you.”

Darcy fiddles her fork through her bowl, watching her mother intently as Steve politely slurps up the noodles beside her. “Mom...are _ you _ okay?”

She watches Lori’s face crumble for just a moment, the tears welling in her eyes, and then her mother almost visibly collects herself, straightening up to her full height and pasting on a smile that is determined and broken at the same time. “I’m okay, baby. I’m just happy to have my girl home.”

“Still no word from Corey or Leslie?”

“Not yet. I expect it’s...pretty difficult to make travel plans from across the country. But we’ll hear from them. I’m sure of it.”

Darcy, certainly much less sure, nods anyway, and forces herself to take a few bites of the spaghetti. It’s meant to be a comfort, she knows, her favorite food, but something about the way the world has changed since the last time she ate her mom’s spaghetti makes her taste nothing but mush.

“Phone lines should be back up by morning,” Steve says gently. When Darcy glances over, his bowl is spotlessly empty - it has to be the supersoldier serum, but _ God _ can he eat. He stands up, ready to take the bowl to the sink, but Lori takes it from him, shaking her head. “Thank you...Mrs. Lewis. I should take off.”

“Please, honey, it’s Lori.” She chews on her lip for a moment before depositing the bowl into the dishwasher. “You have a place to stay tonight, Steve?”

Darcy opens her mouth to protest, but Steve is already stopping the bleeding. “That’s alright, Lori, I’ve got...I’ve got different arrangements. I wouldn’t want to impose on you.”

“The house is empty as it is, you wouldn’t be imposing at all.”

“Mom, he’ll be okay until we leave.” She feels a bit impolite, trying to get him out the door, but there’s something just a little too familiar about inviting Captain America to stay in their house. The fleeting thought of him roaming around her family home in a bathrobe crosses her mind, and it’s both hilarious and terrifying, and she can’t put her finger on why. “I...kind of want to spend time with just you and me. For a little while at least.”

“We can get lunch,” Steve suggests, and it’s not a terrible idea. “You can show me the best place in town.”

“We could meet up at Luigi’s for a cheesesteak. You ever had a real Philly cheesesteak?” Lori asks him, and he shakes his head. “Alright. We’ll get lunch at Luigi’s tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay,” Steve and Darcy say together. She glances at him, looking like he’s wanted to leave for the last five minutes, and he surprises her by opening his arms and pulling her in for a hug. It takes her a second to remember to hug him back, but she does, and then steps away. 

“Get in safe, okay?” she whispers.

“I will.”

The moment the front door shuts behind him and the truck roars to life outside, Lori falls into the armchair in the living room that faces the kitchen, a wobbly smile on her lips.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing home Captain America.”

“It wasn’t exactly a choice. I’m sure there’s a lot of liability with civilians running around knowing what actually happened in April.”

Her mother leans forward, pressing her elbows into her knees, and it’s only then that the tears begin to fall down her cheeks. The question she asks is not the one Darcy expects. “Could they have stopped it?”

The words feel like a ton of bricks to the gut. But she answers honestly, or as honestly as she can. “No. I don’t think they could have.”

“Can they fix it?”

She sets down her bowl, still half-full of spaghetti, and crosses the kitchen to join her mother in the chair, squeezing together and barely fitting, but she holds her tight, and lets herself shed a few tears that she’ll probably deny later.

“Momma.”

“Can they fix it?”

She closes her eyes to staunch the flood, but it doesn’t help. “I hope so. ‘Cause I don’t know what I’m gonna do if they can’t.”

* * *

The girl at the motel front desk smells like cigarettes and pink bubblegum, and her preoccupation with the magazine in front of her saves Steve from having to pretend he’s someone else, someone who didn’t flee the country at the threat of treason a few years back. She doesn’t ask many questions, but when he passes cash over the counter, she passes him a room key, reciting out the numbers like she was born knowing them. He thanks her quickly, and ducks out to find room 108.

There’s no denying that it’s been a long day; the clock on the nightstand reads 3:19, and Steve’s used to getting to bed by ten at the very latest. While he’s not particularly sure his body has a limit - when they were on the run, he’d take the longest shifts, not realizing that hours had gone by once it was time to switch - it certainly feels about ready to cast itself into sleep right now. He sets down the backpack he’s brought with him, strips off his shirt, shoes, and jeans, and flops onto his back on the bed, arms spread wide.

Motel room beds are just stiff enough to keep him from feeling like he’ll sink into the mattress. This’ll do.

Except, even with his limbs about ready to fall off, his brain continues to buzz with life, recapping the day. He shoots off a text to Nat to let her know he’s in safe, along with his coordinates if anything were to go south. She tells him Pepper and Rhodey are settled in as well, and then tells him to check in once he wakes up. Her final text sends her love to Darcy, and reminds him to try to enjoy his time away.

He settles into his pillow, closing his eyes, and gets ready to let himself drift into sleep.

And hears only the ringing of the utter silence around him in his ears. “Ah, hell.”

He reaches for the remote on the nightstand, flips through the channels. Most of them are still static, one or two running what look like ancient infomercials, a local news channel. He watches a rookie team of newscasters, each of them looking barely out of college, conducting interviews with people in the area. The anchor, a wide-eyed girl with honey brown hair pulled back into a bun, reads off the teleprompter through quivering lips.

He changes the channel to keep the ache in his chest at bay.

A rerun channel plays 1990s sitcoms late into the night. He wills his eyes closed and tries and fails not to think about watching old episodes of _ The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air _ and _ Cheers _ with Sam and Bucky during their sparse free time on the run. His friends would laugh and bicker over who the better Aunt Viv was, and he’d use popcorn as his choice tool of appeasement. Granted, one man’s tool of appeasement tended to turn into two other men’s weapons. Bucky attempting to shove a piece of popcorn up Sam’s nose was burned into Steve’s memory.

He smiles. As rough as things got being on the road, he had his happy times. They had their happy times.

When he dreams, his friends carry him into sleep.

Sam introduces him to more Marvin Gaye, and tells him stories about his father taking him skiing in Nevada as a boy. Steve sees where Sam’s affinity for flying comes from.

Nat teaches him mahjong, Star Wars, and Portuguese curse words. He watches her blend into any crowd they ever enter, and she charms even the steeliest of motel owners, nightclub bouncers, and PTA moms.

He and Wanda play cards together, and she flatly notes every moment his face matches his thoughts. He used to figure that Nat would teach him how to wear a poker face, but Wanda’s got a penchant for temperance. She’s also the only one they can trust to make a half-decent meal on the run.

In his dreams, Bucky has a hard time being the best friend Steve remembers. Sometimes he is fearless, asking out a faceless dame by taking her hand and spinning her toward him; other times, he is cautious, can’t figure out why he knows a certain song or why his foot taps along with every beat. He’s still Steve’s best friend - when Steve dreams of the impossible or the nonsensical, Bucky is by his side every time.

The dream he has tonight is both impossible and nonsensical. He dreams of a time before the Snap, an Avengers mission, being flanked by Sam and Natasha on one side, Bucky and Wanda on the other. Most missions usually take place as peacekeeping pursuits, either in faraway countries or seedy undergrounds too close to home. In this one, he leads his team through Central Park - but this Central Park is empty in broad daylight, silent and crisp and clear.

No pigeons, no ducks, no rats, no dogwalkers or dogs, for that matter. And even in the silence and vacancy of the park, he still somehow finds himself alone. The dream flashes forward to him being taken captive, a dank and dirty room, and then -

It flashes white, to a woman in a cream-colored dress extending her hand to him, a woman with dark hair and a kind, familiar voice telling him it’s going to be okay. A song plays in the air behind her, something modern and poppy. It’s loud, but not enough to be irritating. He catches a glimpse of a pink, gap-toothed smile, before -

The obnoxious buzz of the hotel alarm wakes him, and it takes every ounce of restraint in his body not to smash the thing when he hits the off button.

White dress. Dark hair. Soft lips. 

His body wakes itself up piece by piece. Eyes first, wandering to the television at the head of the room. Ears, scanning for anything unfamiliar or out of place. His hands, one moving off the alarm and the other flopping onto his stomach, fingers flexed. When his brain finally catches up, it sends the blood rushing to his cheeks, a hot blush outmatched only by the blood rushing...elsewhere. 

“Fuck.”

Even super soldier serum can’t stop penises doing what they do in the morning.

He wraps his hand around his cock, willing his brain into the neat box it usually goes into when he touches himself like this, but this time it won’t - this time he can’t get pink lips out of his head, a laugh that’s strange and familiar at once.

He trains his eyes to the television, looking more than he is watching, and lets his hand stroke up and down the shaft of his dick, pausing when he gets to the blunt head. He swipes his thumb over the tip, wipes away the precum collecting there. _ Fuck _, he thinks, and isn’t sure if he’s only thought it or said it out loud. He twitches in his own hand, feels himself thrusting between his fingers.

The lips won’t leave his head. He pictures them wet and wide, opening for him, taking him in to the hilt. He feels his hips rocking again, feels his muscles tighten and loosen with the jerk of his cock in his hand. The imaginary woman flicks her tongue over the head of his cock, and he shudders into her touch. She smiles into him, lets him bob out of her mouth, and then takes him back in; he feels the inside of her mouth warm, slick, enticing.

A hum escapes his throat, and he feels himself twitching involuntarily; he picks up the pace.

In his mind’s eye, he replaces his large, rough, calloused hand with hers, small and dainty, as she pumps him into her own mouth. Her phantom tongue rolls up the underside of him, circling his head. He screws his eyes shut, and his free hand slithers down his waist, between his thighs to let his balls fall into his palm. The woman in his head looks up at him, and while most of the pornography he comes across that films from this perspective prefers its women doe-eyed, sloppy-lipped, on their knees for men as an act of service, the eyes of this woman challenge him, almost smiling, and maybe she’s not looking up at him at all. Maybe he’s on his back, and she’s on top of him, his pleasure literally in her hands - and her mouth - and maybe she’s the one who put him there. Maybe it’s not an act of service at all. She does this because she wants him like this, she wants him to know that she wants him like this.

Her mirthful eyes turn blue and wide, the tangled hair around her shoulders turns dark and long, the smile pressing against his cock pink-lipped and gap-toothed, and when he imagines the woman finishing him with her mouth and her hands, his cum spills out of his cock and splatters on his stomach, and he chokes out a moan that isn’t a moan.

As his vision goes white - _ Darcy… _

He feels his body jolt with the shock of his orgasm, the shock of his friend’s name sliding off his tongue.

“Fuck.”


	6. ||six||

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a description of an anxiety attack and mentions of homophobia and/or biphobia; tread carefully <3

_But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough._

_If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear_

_If I my tongue in lockèd box immure_

_Blame not me, for I am sick with love._

_ Yet would I be your friend most willingly_

_ Since friendship would infect me killingly._

_ \- What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends - Julian Talamantez Brolaski _

The sound of her home phone ringing is so foreign and jarring that it wakes Darcy on the first buzz. It’s not a graceful awakening, either - she sits bolt upright the way she’s only seen people do so in movies, her tangled hair jumping in front of her face. Her mother rustles beside her, almost slithering to her feet as she stumbles to the door to get to the hallway.

“Corey? Baby?” she hears Lori asking from the kitchen, and she kicks herself out of the covers to scramble in her mother’s wake to the phone. “Where are you, honey? Darcy’s home, your father, he - I’m so sorry, baby, Dad’s gone.”

She squeezes her mother’s shoulder, letting her forehead bow into the back of Lori’s head. The muffled sound of Corey’s voice comes out reasonably distressed, goes quiet, and then levels out.

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. So, so, so sorry…” She turns around to face Darcy, her eyes full again, her lips trembling. “Leslie and Zoe are gone,” she whispers, half-collapsing into her daughter’s arms.

Darcy wants to crumble down to her knees, wants to scream and yell and kick and cry and disappear into the Earth. The air comes rushing out of her, and she tries to gasp it all back in, but the best she can do is let her mother fall apart with her, hold her upright, and finagle the phone out of Lori’s hand.

“Corey?” she asks, in a voice that doesn’t feel like it belongs to her.

“Hey, bud,” he breathes shakily, but there’s something like a tiny smile that comes with it. “I can’t tell you how good it is to - to hear your voice. How’re you...shit, it’d be stupid to ask how you’re doing, huh?”

“Basically.” They laugh the same way - maybe not the pitch or the tone, but a rhythm that almost flows together. It’s their dad’s laugh. “Where are you?”

“Um...passing Wheeling, I think? Ohio or West Virginia, I don’t know. I’ve got Juli with me on a bus, we’re on our way home. She’s sleeping.”

“Juli,” she repeats, running a hand up and down Lori’s back. “She’s safe.”

“Still shaken pretty bad. It happened…” He draws in a breath, and she envisions him leaning over Julianna in the seat nearest the window, shielding her with his body. “...we were sitting at the counter for breakfast. All the channels were showing what happened in New York. We didn’t want to scare them, and Zoe asked for Mulan, so we put on the DVD. Les got up to get more coffee, and…”

She pictures Leslie turning to dust the way that Ian had, her coffee mug shattering on the floor. She pictures Zoe with her hair in a braid, her soft and squeaky voice calling out for her mother, before she disappears, too.

Once she musters up the image, she can’t get it out of her head.

“When do you get here? I’ll...I’ll be home a couple of days.”

“Tonight. Late tonight, probably.”

“Okay. Okay. Well...give Juli a squeeze from us, and then we’ll see you tonight. Do you wanna...you wanna give me updates when you get closer?”

“Sure...yeah, I’ll text you when we stop.” He pauses, and something in Darcy’s gut quivers at hearing her big brother sniffle. “I love you guys. I’ll see you soon.”

“Love you, too.”

“Love you, too,” Lori adds, and she straightens up, palming the tears out of her eyes. She takes the phone back, propping it up to her ear. “You keep my grandbaby safe, okay? You be safe.” She replaces the phone on the hook and combs out the tangles of her hair with her fingers, as if to shake away the pain. “What time is it? I need to…I need to get ready for today.” 

Darcy’s about to ask what today is when her own cell buzzes in her pocket - a text from Steve. “It’s ten. Steve’s checking in to make sure we’re okay for noon.” She peeks back at the text: _ Hey. Hope you and your mom slept okay. See you soon. _ Not necessarily checking in to make sure they’re okay for noon, but close enough. For some reason, asking her mother how she slept on Captain America’s behalf feels intimate on a level that makes her stomach go...funny.

“Noon,” Lori repeats, and brushes her hands through her hair again, like she’s trying to find every single knot to comb it out. “Okay. Noon is okay. I’m gonna hop in the shower. There’s…” She reaches out to open the cabinet behind her, standing on tiptoe to see what’s inside. “I’ve got Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, and oatmeal. If you’re hungry.”

“I’m okay, Mom. Thank you.”

Lori pulls Darcy down to press a kiss to her forehead, and squeezes her by the shoulders, smiling through watery eyes. “Okay.”

They each retreat to the bathrooms in separate corners of the house, Darcy’s attached to her old bedroom. It’s a guest room now, empty of her old soccer medals and her posters and the almost floor-length wall of nail polish she and Lori had fought over more times than she could count. She drops her duffel on the floor outside the bath, and turns the faucet all the way up. While she waits for the water to get hot, she taps her phone’s keyboard.

_ Slept as okay as you’d expect. You? _

She strips down before testing the water - not there yet. The mirror on the wall opposite reflects too many ribs, her hipbones more prominent than she remembers. She lifts one arm over her head, idly checks her breasts for lumps in the mirror the way a doctor had advised her to back in college, the way she hasn’t done since before the Exodus. She half-jumps when her phone fires off another text from Steve.

_ Funny dreams. Haven’t dreamt in a while. _

What would he dream about? Avengers missions? The 40s? Did he dream when he was on the ice, or did it feel like dying, black and quiet and empty, until he woke up with strangers poking and prodding at him?

He texts her again, right after the first one. _ I’ll quit bugging you. See you at noon. Luigi’s, right? _

_ Yup _, she clicks back, before covering her screen with the flap of its phone case, and sticks a toe back into the water. Just warm enough.

Between the scrubbing and the suds and the realization that it’s the first time in maybe five years that she’s woken up in her own house, Darcy lets her mind wander to the corners of the past and what the present means now. If they can’t reverse the Snap, if the state of the universe allows for purple despots to do away with so many humans and creatures just because, how is she supposed to learn to accept all this death? Her fiancé, and her father, and her sister-in-law, her niece. Innocent children and little old people, serial killers and corrupt politicians alike. Death doesn’t give two shits for her, or for them. Justice doesn’t come for times like this.

There has never been a time like this.

A rush of adrenaline punches her in the gut, and it feels like her breath is lost in the steam. She leans forward, pressing her hands to her knees, willing the world to slow down, willing the tile to stop spinning beneath her feet. She closes her eyes and tries to inhale again, and swallows down the icy fear rising up her throat.

_ Shit. Shit. Fuck _.

She lowers herself into a squat, bracing a hand on the wall opposite her. For a fleeting moment, her insides quiver and she thinks she’s about to throw up, but when her forehead hits the wall, the world begins to slow down.

_ Breathe, bitch, for the love of God, breathe. _

“Okay,” she whispers to herself, “okay. You’re okay.”

She inhales again, bringing herself to her feet, and reaches shakily for the shampoo. She squirts a pump into her palm and pushes it into her scalp, scraping her hair with her fingernails. It smells thickly of mango, and the suds roll soothingly down the back of her neck. She takes the bar soap off its shelf and runs it down her stomach, under her armpits, over her shoulder blades. She scrubs her thighs and calves, her hips. When the bubbles subside, she savors the sweet-smelling water, and lets herself stand in the heat a few minutes longer, doing her best not to think too much about anything.

When her fingers have wrinkled, she shuts the water off and pulls her towel tight around her. The bathroom air is thick with steam, and it takes her a moment to find herself in the mirror again. Her phone chimes again - Jane this time, texting her that she’s had a break in the particle accelerant solution she’s working on. And that her estranged mother has reached out.

Darcy hits the call button with her elbow.

“What the fuck, dude.”

“Hold on - ” Jane says, sounding hurried. Something in the background whirs and whistles, and then she picks up the phone again with a clatter. “Hello? You there?”

“Yeah.”

“I had to dilute the accelerant, or it would’ve turned acidic. How’s it going? Your mom doing okay?”

“Dude, _ your _ mom got in touch. Tell me what happened.” She puts the phone on speaker and sets it on top of the toilet so she can pull on her panties and jeans.

“I don’t know.” Jane pauses, and Darcy can almost physically hear her shrug. “She’s alive. She called when the phone lines came up. She asked if I was okay.”

“Did she want to see you? Did she ask where you are?” 

“We didn’t get that far.”

“Do you want to see her?”

She hears Jane huff, and she pictures her threading her hair through her fingers. “I don’t know, Darce. Would she ever come to me if there weren’t a crisis? I mean...what am I supposed to do? Now that the world’s falling apart, we’re supposed to be okay? I’m supposed to pretend I _ don’t _ like men and women for the sake of keeping my family together?”

“Jane…”

“It’s dumb. I should be okay with her, shouldn’t I?”

“Jane, come on…”

“No, it’s the end of the world, isn’t it? So I should...ah, hell - ” Something else crashes in the background, and Jane huffs another sigh. “...I shouldn’t call you while working. What are you and your mom up to today?”

“We’re meeting Steve for lunch. My brother gets in tonight with Juli.”

Jane goes quiet. The rustling in the background goes quiet, too. “Darcy, I’m so sorry.”

She shrugs, even though she knows Jane can’t see her, and clasps her bra before pulling it around to the front. “I’ve had enough existential crises today as it is. I’d like to postpone the crying until I absolutely can’t hold it in anymore.”

Jane sighs again; it’s sad this time, soft and sad. “As long as we can commiserate in our emotional constipation, I guess.”

“You don’t _ have _to be okay with your mom, Jane. The apocalypse and shit happening doesn’t make her any better of a person.”

“I know that. I just don’t know what to do with it. Not like I’ve ever had to deal with anything like this before. You know?”

“Yeah,” she half-scoffs, and gets her shirt on. Some of the steam has cleared off the mirror, and her hands are dry enough to touch her phone screen. 10:50. Lori will be getting ready, probably doing her hair up. “Yeah, I get it. Hey, I swear I’m not trying to cut you off, but right now my head is just...can I call you tonight? Maybe before Corey gets home.”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you tonight.”

“Hey,” Darcy says, before Jane can hang up. “I love you, dude.”

“I love you, too. I’ll talk to you later.”

Once they’ve hung up, Darcy trains her hair into a braid, not bothering with her contacts, and applies only the most basic layer of makeup. It doesn’t help much, not that she can see it well - her glasses badly need an update on the prescription. She shakes her head at her reflection anyway, and slaps on her deodorant before finally venturing out the door.

The drive to Luigi’s is quiet, too; every radio station sings the news of phone lines returning, and she swears it all sounds a little too Walking Dead for her taste. Thankfully, Lori turns the volume dial to mute.

“It’s a beautiful day,” her mom says, watching the sun filter through the leaves overhead. The wind shakes a few free from their branches, and they go rolling over the windshield. “We ought to go do something after this. You and me.”

“Today? What do you want to do?”

She makes the turn onto the main road, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know. We can go to the park, or go shopping? Get out of the house for a bit.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be nice.” She wants to get snappy, say something sarcastic about shops probably not being open due to all the mayhem, but she holds back, looking through the window instead. She’ll have to paste on some semblance of happiness for lunch; Steve’s a good person and she likes spending time with him. There’s no need to take out her drama on him.

“Honey, I don’t know if this is...on a don’t ask, don’t tell basis, but...well...Ian…?” Lori trails off, grimacing slightly as she avoids eye contact.

“Mom, do we have to do this now?”

“No, honey, we don’t, but...well, you just never told me if he...you know…”

She sighs and twirls her engagement ring around her finger again, so that the jewel presses into her palm, and then spins it back to normal. “He’s gone, Mom. Right in front of my eyes, gone. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Well, it’s just…” Lori’s hands tighten over the steering wheel, and she pulls into the parking lot behind the shopping center where they’re meeting up with Steve, putting the car in park and making no attempt to leave her seat. “You’re working with...SHIELD, right?”

“Technically, there is no SHIELD anymore.”

“But what used to be SHIELD. Right?” Darcy nods, unsure where all this is going exactly. “And you’re working to change things. Fix them, to how they used to be. So we can get your father back, and Leslie, and Zoe, and - and Ian. Well, I just...I just want you to be careful, baby.”

“Mom, being with the Avengers is, like, the safest place I could be. I promise you, I’ll be okay.”

Lori begins to inhale, like she’s about to say something else, but she looks like she rethinks it, squeezing her lips together and nodding. She undoes her seatbelt, looking into her lap, and pushes the driver door open. “Okay. Okay, baby, I trust you.”

“Okay, Momma,” she says, shouldering open her door, and knows that this is not the end of it.

When they spot Steve at the corner booth in the back of Luigi’s, he sends a fleeting smile their way, lifting his hand in a friendly but brief hello. The beard and the long hair do a good job of keeping him incognito, but there’s a little boy a few booths across who keeps looking over with his mouth wide open. He fiddles with his hands as Darcy and Lori come closer, something a bit jittery to his movements.

Why is everybody and everything so _ weird _ today?

“Hey,” he says, standing up to greet them, and this time Lori extends her arm for a side-hug. Darcy doesn’t bother; instead, she drops into the booth and scoots all the way in to rest her elbow against the wall. “How you two holdin’ up?”

“Okay.” Lori twiddles a strand of her hair, her bright green eyes alight with life. “We’re going to go out today, Darcy and me. Have you ordered?”

“Not yet. But the pizza cheesesteak looks good.”

“Mmm.” As if on cue, a waiter makes his way to the edge of the table, his dark blue hair slicked back and his crisp sleeves rolled up his wrists. “Hi,” Lori says, in a voice that’s too chipper for someone in any of their positions. “Can we get three root beers? And a - a few more minutes, please.” She turns to Steve, extending a hand that all mothers seem to know about when recommending things off a menu. “They make their own root beer, in house. This place used to be Corey’s favorite - ”

“My brother,” Darcy interrupts, to answer a question Steve is too polite to ask. “He’s coming in tonight with his daughter.”

“Oh. Wow, I - I didn’t know you had a brother. Or a niece.”

“Yeah. I do.” In an effort not to be the dick who brings down the whole day, she doesn’t tell him about her other niece, or her sister-in-law. “Corey and Julianna. They’re coming in tonight. You’ll probably...probably see them before we go. You and me.”

“Okay,” he says, in a voice so soft it almost feels like a sin to hear him say it out loud, in public. It turns her ears red, and Lori coughs, reminding them of her presence.

“What are you getting?” Darcy asks her mom, finally cracking the menu open. “Think the Italian Stallion sounds good.”

Steve frowns over his own menu. “The Italian Stallion?”

“Yeah, the marinara sauce and onions and Italian sausage. Did you see _ Rocky _? It’s - that’s what it’s named after. You know, the museum here was the one he ran up all the steps...in the movie.”

He snaps his fingers, realization dawning on his face. “Sylvester Stallone. Right?”

She laughs at the innocence of his excitement; Lori joins in just a moment later. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t take it the wrong way. When his root beer is placed in front of him, he smiles across the table at Darcy, a faint pink tinting his cheeks. 

“I guess that settles it. Italian Stallion for me.”

“Italian Stallions all around.”

* * *

Corey arrives around ten o’clock that night, clutching a sleepy Julianna in one hand and their luggage in the other. The bus rolls to its designated stop, and when the rest of the passengers vacate, and he spots his mother and his sister at the station, he drops the bags and rushes, Juli still in tow, into Lori’s arms. Darcy hangs back at first, but he grabs her by the shoulder of her shirt to pull her in. His racking sob shakes the four of them; he squeezes them closer.

“Oh, God,” he whispers, letting go, and wipes his nose with his sleeve. The edge of his hairline pushes back, almost into the beanie on his head, and his beard has overgrown most of his face. But he smiles through his tears, gently pinching Darcy’s arm. “Hey, squirt.”

“Hey. Here, let me help you with your stuff - ” Juli breaks into a ferocious yawn and then clings to Darcy’s leg, mumbling her hello. “Hey, sleepy. How you feeling?”

“I want Zoe,” she yawns again, and reaches her arms upward in the universal symbol for “pick-me-up.” Darcy obliges, feeling her heart drop into her toes.

“I know, honey. I miss her, too.” She thinks Juli’s about to start crying, but she buries her face into Darcy’s shoulder and rests it there till they get into the car. Lori sets up her carseat in the back, and Darcy sets her gently in before trying feebly to wrestle her arms and legs into the buckling mechanism.

“I got it,” Corey says, reaching over her. Darcy steps out of the way and lets herself into the passenger seat. 

She suddenly feels cold and small, and tucks her knees up to her chest, turning toward the window. After making sure everything is packed in securely, Lori hops into the driver’s seat to turn on the car and ramp up the heater. Corey packs the last of his things, then hoists himself up into the car, reaching forward to squeeze Darcy’s hand as they take off.

“Are you hungry? We can stop somewhere, or Darcy and I picked up some Luigi’s earlier.” 

“Luigi’s?” His ears perk up almost cartoonishly, but it’s amazing to see his demeanor shift, if just a little. Darcy grabs the bag from by her feet and hands it back to him, happy to get her hand back still attached to her wrist. She could swear that he doesn’t even rip the paper wrapping off before shoving the damn sandwich in his mouth. “Mm. _ Mmmmm _.”

“Do you need to be alone for a little bit?” Lori asks, looking at him through the rearview. He answers with another set of unsafe-for-work groans, and proceeds to slather his face in meat and sauce.

_ Talked to my mom _ , Jane texts her abruptly, while Corey’s busy making love to his sandwich in the backseat. _ Don’t know how I’d say it went. _

_ Are you going to see her? _

She’d talked to Jane after they went shopping earlier in the day. She was panicked about talking to her mother; their history was uncomfortable, starting with the day Jane came home from grad school with a girlfriend to find her belongings strewn across the front lawn. Occasionally, Jane would get a Christmas card from her mother and whatever new boyfriends she was pursuing lately, but most of the time it’s radio silence. Jane doesn’t cry, but when it comes to her mom, talking about her or thinking about her or whatever, she clams up, goes white, and tucks her head down into whatever it is she’s working on for the time being.

_ Not right now _ , Jane taps back. _ I can worry about her after we put things right. _

Darcy sucks on her lip, anxious to think about when exactly that might be. How exactly they plan on getting there. _ You’ll tell me more when I get back? _

_ Yeah. Give your bro my love. _

She tucks her phone back into her pocket and turns back to look at Corey, his head cocked back in bliss with sauce smeared over his lips and beard. Juli sleeps peacefully beside him in her carseat, her thumb stuffed in her mouth.

“You doin’ okay back there, bud?”

“Luigi’s is my kryptonite. You guys know me so well.”

“I should hope so,” Lori retorts. She makes the turn onto the freeway to get home, peeking at him through the rearview mirror. “I oughta know you better than anyone, you came out of me.”

He pulls a grimace, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Mom, I’m so thankful that you want to have us and you picked us up, but…” His eyes dart to his daughter beside him to make sure she’s still out cold. “...what the fuck?”

“We just listened to you do unspeakable things to a cheesesteak back there, don’t you start acting squeamish now.”

Darcy listens to them banter back and forth on the drive back, pausing occasionally when Lori asks to listen to whatever’s on the radio. It almost reminds her of the drives back from his high school basketball games, or her soccer matches.

When Corey reaches up to bump her shoulder with his knuckles, teasing her for being spacey, she reaches back to punch his knee - and it almost feels like really being home.

* * *

Steve thinks Natasha would be impressed with the straight face he’s able to wear at lunch with Darcy and her mother, as if he hadn’t just had her name in his mouth that morning when he was...touching himself. 

God, he could only imagine what his mother would think. She’d inspire the wrath of hell and all her Catholic guilt with her wooden spoon of choice and wash his mouth out with soap if she knew what he’d done.

It makes it worse that lunch with Darcy and her mother is...really nice. They talk like they’ve known each other for years, Lori joshing him for his massive appetite and Darcy taking every opportunity she can to play her stupid ringtone for him. He teases them about spaghetti and quizzes them on their favorite pop culture references.

And the whole time, the whole damn time, that little blue ring on her finger sparkles and shines when the light hits it just right - and suddenly he doesn’t need to think of his mother to feel the Catholic guilt all the way down to his toes.

After lunch he visits the famous Philly museum and seats himself in front of a statue of an Indian god whose stateliness would put Thor to shame. He sketches the exhibits and the visitors in front of them one at a time, keeping quiet and making sure that he doesn’t draw too much attention. One young girl in a headscarf glances at him through narrowed eyes, but when he smiles at her, she smiles back, and follows her mother to the next artwork.

Sitting and sketching _ almost _effectively gets his mind off the rhythmic beat replaying this morning’s events, but sometimes a woman with long, dark hair will pass by, and even though he knows it’s not her, his heart nearly stops.

It’s not a bad try. He’s able to let his head wander for a bit, laugh with the family whose little boy points out the bald man in the painting and then waves excitedly at his bald father. But it’s like trying to ignore an elephant in the room when the elephant trampled your house the day before.

Except it feels like he’s the one that’s done the trampling. Because he’s the one that’s just volunteered himself to join her on this trip, gotten to know her and like her as a human being, and fucking _ jerked himself off while thinking about her _ \- not on purpose, but how can he even be sure he didn’t know she was the dark-haired, curvy woman in his mind’s eye? - and then went and had lunch with her and her _ mother _ . Knowing that she is _ engaged _, and it’s almost directly a result of his failings that her fiancé has been spirited away to God-knows-where. Along with her father, and the other half of the universe.

By the time the navel-gazing and self-berating have all but taken over his head, he decides to haul himself from his bench at the museum and return to the motel to get his running shoes on and chase his problems away, like he’s always done before.

After the thirteenth mile, it becomes clear that he can’t just run these thoughts out of his head.

He catches his breath at a picnic table by the lake at the nearest park, and thumbs through his phone to click on Nat’s number. She picks up on the second ring.

“You okay? Saw you running circles around Philadelphia.”

“Are you...tracking me?”

“I get a ping when you drive the truck, and I get a separate ping when your phone goes over a certain speed. For safety. If I see you break into a run without the truck, I know you might need help. But based on your GPS trail, it doesn’t look like you need help. Are you stress-running?”

He pushes out a sigh. “I know that it’s a necessary precaution, especially now, but can you do me a favor and turn off your spy mode for a bit? I need a friend.”

The line goes quiet for a second, but when Nat responds, there’s almost a smile in her voice. “Are you okay?”

“I...ugh.” There’s sweat on his brow, and he’s not all that sure it’s from the run. He lifts the collar of his shirt to wipe it away. “I have...a personal problem.”

“Uh-huh...regarding?”

“Darcy.”

She’s definitely smiling now, he can tell by the laugh that she disguises as a cough. “Sorry. What about her? You getting on her nerves yet?”

“I don’t think I should have come on this trip with her. I should’ve gone somewhere else to clear my head, let her do family things on her own.”

“You _ are _ letting her do family things right now, and she’s a lot safer with you in the same vicinity.”

“You should’ve gone with her. Or Thor, or Bruce, or somebody. Not me.”

“Did you kiss her?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Sleep with her?”

“Nat.”

“Don’t be coy. You’re the one who called me about a problem. Did you do something?” She over-enunciates the question, and he can imagine her elbows digging into the table in front of her, hands folded together, all brass tacks.

“I...I had a...moment.”

“A moment,” she repeats, now sounding unimpressed. “Would you like to elaborate?”

Christ. Does she have to make it like pulling teeth? He looks around, thankful to find the park mostly empty. “I was...in an intimate position at my hotel. And she popped into my head.”

“Hm,” Nat says unhelpfully. She takes a pause, and Steve becomes painfully aware that he’s now probably the shade of a tomato, burning from the inside out with shame and embarrassment. “So...you have a crush?”

“I’m not a schoolboy.”

“I’m sorry, how would _ you _ describe it?”

The emotional constipation threatens to bottom out of his gut. “Okay. Sure, alright. I have a crush. I’m ninety-nine years old. And I have never known the first thing about how to talk to a woman, much less one I barely met a few days ago. And she’s a thousand percent not interested in me, because she’s engaged. What the hell do I do with this, Nat?”

“That’s more like it, soldier,” she smiles, and takes in a breath that tells him he better pay close attention. “Alright. Let’s put a little bit of this into perspective, okay? You are grieving. You’ve suffered a lot of loss lately, and so has she. Darcy is new to you, and she’s pretty. And there could be some novelty to having a pretty new girl around. With the time you’ve spent with her...it’s not completely surprising that you’d get a crush. You lean on each other emotionally, everyone does in grief. Leaning is okay. But crushes, you can get over. And I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you don’t have to get bent out of shape over every woman you’re attracted to.”

He blushes at the blow about Peggy, and probably about Sharon. But she’s right. People get over crushes all the time. “So how do I...get unbent?”

A little expulsion of breath comes across the line, signaling some kind of amusement. “If I could give you the simple answer to that, Rogers, I’d be richer than Stark. You can start by taking it easy with all the beating yourself up I know you’re doing.”

“Have you ever known me not to beat myself up over something?”

“Well...you do _want_ to get over her, don't you?”

It shocks Steve just how long it takes his brain to figure out the answer to that question. And even by the time an answer does his mouth, he’s not entirely sure it’s the right one. “Yeah. Yeah, of course I do.”

“Okay,” Nat says, her tone schooled enough to tell him she’s not sure she believes him either. “Well. There are _ other _options for getting over people.”

“Do I want to ask?”

He can almost feel her shrugging, taking her hands off the table to lift them in an uncharacteristic show of surrender. “In dating lore, it’s sometimes said...the best way to get over one person is to get under someone else. Historically, not always the best option for everyone. But an option.”

He’s definitely blushing now; maybe it’s about time to give the running his problems away tactic another shot. “Remind me never to ask you for romantic advice again.”

“Get a love life, and I’ll get better romantic advice.”

He stretches out his calves first, very much ready to take off again. “Yeah, don’t hold your breath, Romanoff.”


	7. ||seven||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tries to see whether Nat's method of getting over someone helps, and runs into two unexpected people at the dive bar. Darcy has to reconcile her need to stay at home with the people she loves and her need to help put the world back together.

_ This is what I have. _ _   
_ _ The dull hangover of waiting, _ _   
_ _ the blush of my heart on the damp grass, _ _   
_ _ the flower-faced moon.  
_ _ A gull broods on the shore  _ _   
_ _ where a moment ago there were two.  
_ _ Softly my right hand fondles my left hand  _ _   
_ _ as though it were you. _

_ -“Little Crazy Love Song” - Mary Oliver _

This is, by and large, one of the stupidest things Steve could do. But over the course of the last three days, waiting for the squirmy guilty feeling in his gut to dissipate, he’s exhausted many of the options he has for getting over a stupid crush on a perfectly good friend of his, whose companionship he would be annoyed at himself over fucking up. He’s run what feels like half the state, he’s knocked out punching bags at every gym that’ll take him, he’s gotten himself off in the shower again and again and again until the damn thing feels like it’ll fall off.

He shoulders open the door to the dingiest dive bar he can find, one with crumpled ones stapled to the walls, and promises himself that Nat’s suggestion will be the last resort, or he’ll  _ have  _ to talk to Darcy about these feelings.

The only empty seat at the bar hangs at the far end, a stool with red vinyl that hugs the sweaty spot on his back just enough so that it makes him consider leaving. But he doesn’t. The barkeep, a sturdy-looking woman whose expression reminds him a little of Kelsey, notices him pretty fast, and slides a double of whiskey his way after the first time he asks.

She smiles at him when he pays in cash, and keeps the drinks coming even when he doesn’t ask, like she knows it would take a lot more than a few glasses of Wild Turkey to put him under.

As dark and dank as the place is, there’s no missing the love here; half the patrons know the bartender by name, and every so often, a few will shout invitations for a game of pool across the bar or start a dance circle to whichever rowdy song blares on the jukebox next.

There’s some sadness, too. To be expected. One wall near the front door is plastered with photos, of young and old alike, as many of them in bright color as sepia. A man halfway down the bar buries his face in his bottle, no matter how many times the bartender - Nell, he learns - asks if he’s alright. When he slurs something unintelligible and terrible, she squeezes his arm and brings him another beer.

“Sir,” someone mutters beside him, and he turns his head to glance at the gruff gentleman in a heavy coat on the next stool over. His eyes are filmy and blue, and he looks too old to stand, let alone nurse the pint glass tucked into his chest. But under the whiskers and the beer, he’s smiling, like he’s in on a secret that only he and Steve know.

“Sir,” Steve says back, pulling self-consciously on his beard.

“You know…” he trails off, eyes wandering to the far side of the bar. “My brother was one of the youngest in the 107th. Bit young to be a Howlie, but he remembers you. And Barnes, and Morita, and Dugan, Juniper, Falsworth. The whole lot of ‘em.”

“What was his name?”

“Daniel. Danny Williamsburg. From Detroit, Michigan.”

Steve searches his memory; a boy with a thin, freckled face, a long, crooked nose, and perhaps the steadiest hands he’d ever seen comes to mind. “I remember him. Chewed tobacco? Used to give me a hell of a time about, uh, who was the pitcher?”

“Hubbell,” the man finishes for him, now smiling a toothy smile over his pint. “Carl Hubbell. Dan was a Giants fan. Swore up and down Hubbell could do no wrong.”

“Ugh.” Steve scrubs his face with his palm - their conversations come to him in flashes, Danny’s slow smile, his insistence on setting up his camp by the radio, when they could spare one, so he could tune in to the games. “That’s right. I told him that as a kid, I’d get stuck in right field, ‘cause nobody really wanted me on their team, and then, hell, did he start to chirp.” He chuckles, running a hand up the back of his neck. “‘Dixie ain’t shit, Rogers. Detroit kicked ‘im to ya when we was done with ‘im.’”

“He said so, huh?” The man shakes his head fondly. “Christ, he never supported Detroit a day in his life. Goddamn Danny boy.” Steve watches the smallest of tears form in the corner of the man’s eye, but he brushes it away, sniffling back another.

“He was a good kid.”

“He was a shit, my big brother. When he got back, it was like things hadn’t changed a bit. He’d give me a hard time whenever he heard me putting the Tigers on, steal my dessert at the dinner table, all the big brother shit big brothers do. And sometimes he wasn’t.” The younger Williamsburg stares somewhere ahead of him - a look Steve’s seen often. “He’d bite his nails till they bled, like he didn’t notice they hurt. Or, when we got a TV, he’d hunch so far forward, eyes on it, I thought he’d tip over.” He clicks his tongue, and then turns back to Steve, eyes widening, and shakes his head.

“There are better resources now.”

“Yeah, there are now.” He sips thoughtfully from his beer, and taps his thick knuckles on the bartop. “I got a good group. I can talk about war, talk about Danny, and I catch myself before I get all that madness in my head too much. Catch the bad feelings before they become bad thoughts.” Steve tries to smile in encouragement, but there are tears collecting in the old man’s eyes again. “Old Dan didn’t get a chance for any of that. Funny way the world works, Dan died in a car accident while I was in Korea.”

“Shit. I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good kid.”

“A car accident,” he laughs humorlessly. “After the war and all its demons, it was a car crash took old Danny. God laughs at us silly little men, don’t he?”

He’s looking at the wall now, all the pictures of the men and women and children Steve couldn’t save. All the men and women long dead, all of the ones just out of reach. Guilt and anger spike in his gut, and he feels his hands clenching on the bartop, nearly splintering the wood.

God laughing at little men makes him think of Thanos - and Thanos is no god.

“It’s not over,” Steve says, more to himself than to the other man. “Dan might be gone, but...all this.” He nods at the wall, the new photos crowded together with the old ones. “It’s not over. I’m going to...we’re going to make things right.”

The younger Williamsburg gives him a meaningful look and sighs, pressing his face into his palm. “Forgive a cynical old man, Captain. I don’t mean to lose faith. We need you, now more than ever. And your team.” He stands up and sets down his empty glass, leaving a small stack of singles in front of him. “I suppose I should be getting on. Life keeps going, huh?”

Steve extends his hand between them, and shakes when the old man grips it. “I...I didn’t get your name.”

The old man laughs through his nose and pulls his hand away to reach for a cane resting against the lower part of the bar. “It’s Steve. Steve Williamsburg.”

Of course it is. “Thanks for talkin’ with me, Steve.”

The older Steve - or maybe the younger one, it’s hard to tell - nods to him, and then, his eyes flickering to a spot behind the other Steve, a smile pulling on his lips. “Word of caution, Captain...best to take advantage of good things while they’re in reach. Just...one old man to another.”

Steve chances a quick look behind him. A small group of young women, livelier than most at the bar, chatter and bounce with the music from the jukebox. One in particular lets her eye wander toward the bartop, lingering on Steve, and then turns back to her friends to join in their teasing and laughter. By the time he’s able to make of that what he will, the veteran in front of him has gone, and Steve presses the last of his drink to his lips and swallows it down.

He hears her coming before he sees her.

“Hi,” the young woman says, the shyness quavering through her voice, but she slides onto the barstool beside him, resting her elbows on the bartop. “Uh...could I buy you a drink?”

_ Fuck it _ . “Sure. I’m, er, Steve.”

From what he can see, all that means to her is that he’s telling her his name. She smiles, teeth white and straight and framed by full, red-slicked lips. “Madison. Nice to meet you. Is it, uh...okay if I sit with you for a little bit? My...friends are kinda wasted.” She shrugs at the group behind her, all of whom in various states of what looks like hysteria, some doubled over and others wiping away the tears of their laughter.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. What brings you all here?”

She inhales, like she can’t tell whether she should let him in on too much. She’s very pretty - long, sun-streaked brown hair, curious green eyes, soft, tan skin, and slender arms and legs to match a slender waist. “Divorce party. Diana’s leaving her husband. Finally.”

When the bartender returns, Madison orders him another whiskey, and a club soda with lime for herself. “Thanks. You’re not joinin’ in on the fun?”

“I gotta work tomorrow, so I’m driving. We tend to go a little overboard when we all get together.” She meets his eyes, and a bronze blush spreads over her cheeks. “They took me to my first strip club, when I first turned twenty-one.”

“You guys have been tight a long while, then?”

“Yeah. Like, six years? We all used to teach at the same preschool.”

“Preschool teachers like to party,” Steve muses, tapping his finger against the rim of his glass. “Who’da thunk?”

“Oh yes. Especially when there’s tequila involved.” Madison lifts her straw to her lips and takes a shallow sip. “What brings you here to drink alone?” Her tone is light but teasing, one manicured finger tracing the length of her straw.

“I, uh...brought a friend down to visit some family. They all kinda lost a lot with everything going on...I didn’t really want to intrude on all the family stuff, you know?”

She nods, brows furrowing, and fiddles with the sleeve on her blouse. “That’s gotta be tough. I’m sorry to hear about your friend, and their family.” He tries not to think about Darcy, or the terrible, cheap thing he wants to do to get her out of his head. “It's really nice of you, to be there for them like this.”

“Thank you. So, um, what do you guys do now that you’re not preschool teaching together?”

“Well, Diana runs a big, swanky daycare downtown, where all the pilots and flight attendants from the airport take their kids. So she’s got that. Uh…” She points to the woman with a head of raucous red curls and freckles from head to toe. “Lily is a bartender. Love that crazy bitch.” Then she nods to the heavier woman with dark hair and glasses resting her head on Lily’s shoulder. “Annika is Lily’s girlfriend, I  _ think _ she’s a dog groomer, but I don’t really remember.”

He learns that the blonde with a spiky pixie cut, Larissa, now teaches soccer throughout the school district; Rosemary, the brunette wearing all black, has taken a job at the local library; and Penelope, a tall and statuesque woman with faded streaks of pink in her platinum hair, works for a nonprofit while taking odd modeling jobs on the side.

“What about you?” he asks gently, aware that her club soda is dwindling, and reaches for his wallet surreptitiously to flag down the bartender again.

“Me?” The smile she puts on is bashful, another thin flush painting her cheeks. Steve smiles in spite of himself - it’s a cute blush. “I stuck with it for a while. The preschool thing. But I don’t think I’m meant for it. I’m kind of...I’m working with a restaurant here in town for now, and trying to get the cash up to go to culinary school.” She shrugs, lifting both pretty shoulders in sheepish unison. “Kind of wanna start my own restaurant.”

“That’s really amazing,” Steve hears himself saying, but feels in his voice his sincerity. “Do you know what kind of food or anything? Cuisine-wise.”

“Mm, not really? But I have a name already. A stupid one, that’ll probably have copyright issues.”

“Tell me.”

She giggles, covers her mouth with a small fist, and tries not to roll her eyes too hard. “It would be a dog-friendly restaurant, and I’d have, like, a little menu for dogs at the bottom of the regular menu. I’d call it Puptown Funk.”

“Like the song,” he says quickly, too quickly to realize how stupid it must sound to someone who doesn’t know he was born in an entirely different world, and had an entirely different life from the one he leads now. He feels his own ears turn red, and looks down into his drink. “Of course like the song, sorry, that was dumb.”

“No. No, you’re good. It’s...hard to find guys who get excited about silly things with me.” She’s not looking at him when she says it, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorry, I’ve been talking about all my stuff the whole time. What is it  _ you _ do?”

“I’m in...risk management, in a company in upstate New York.” Technically, he’s not lying. But he feels the flimsiness of his words slipping off his tongue, and hates the way that he’s seen it come so easily to Nat. He can imagine her now, smirking at him over the rim of a martini, going  _ risk management. Uh-huh. Universe risk management, maybe _ . “We’ve got a good team of people. Kind of like a security detail.”

Thankfully, she nods, perches her chin on her hand, and tells him that it sounds cool. The bartender comes by again, fills Madison’s glass and gives Steve a look. It’s a look that either says to go for it and get her number, or that she knows Steve is obscenely old for the girl next to him. He chooses not to think about the second option.

“What do you do when you’re...not managing risks?” He wishes he could blame it on alcohol, but knowing how stone sober she is, there’s nothing to distract from the small hand trailing closer to his forearm, then fiddling boldly with the sleeve so close to his wrist.

His heart is thumping hard in his chest, partly because she’s sweet and cute and kind, partly because he has no fucking idea what to do in this situation. “Well...I work out, and I sort of eat a lot, and...I guess you could say I had a pretty sheltered upbringing, so I’ve been trying to catch up on a lot of pop culture stuff.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Her foot is now sliding up his calf, and he prays to the God that his mother threatened him with, wooden spoon in hand, that the poker face he’s wearing will manage to hide the absolute terror that’s rattling through his bones right now.

“Hmm...I just got caught up on all the Star Wars movies the other day. Thought those were pretty good. Started listening to some more rhythm and blues.”

“I love R and B.” She glances up at him, as if to ask that what she’s doing is okay. It most certainly isn’t, but he doesn’t exactly want her to stop. “Have you...listened to any SZA?”

“I’ll have to put them on my list.”

“SZA’s a she,” she smiles, her eyes darting back to her hand on his sleeve, and then at the glass in his hand. “She’s pretty great. I, uh...have her on vinyl at my place. If you’re not too fucked up, maybe...when I take everybody home, maybe you wanna come listen to her with me?”

This is how it’s done, he guesses. This is how normal human beings pick each other up, fall into bed, maybe even fall in love. Normal human beings do not fail to save the world, and then go on road trips with the kind young women they’ve let down, and then accidentally let those women pop into their heads during painful lapses in self-control.

And, most importantly of all, normal human beings do not let those specific women accidentally pop into their heads while being picked up by other women, equally kind and equally deserving of good things, at a bar.

“Okay,” he says, positive that she’s privy to the anxious breaks in his voice. “That sounds really nice.”

She dips her head down, a tender smile pulling at her lips. “Wow. I...I’m gonna be straight with you, I was supposed to come over here and get your number for Diana, but…” She chews on her lip, makes brief eye contact, and looks down again. “I like talking to you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

He watches her fingers sneak up the hem of his sleeve and touch down on the soft flat of his forearm. She’s close enough now for him to taste the bubbles of her club soda on his tongue, to smell the flowery sweetness of her perfume.

It turns out that her friends are happy to walk to the next bar and take an Uber from there. The woman she’d pointed out as Diana sends Madison a wink. When neither of them think Steve is looking, he hears Diana whispering something about how if Madison doesn’t take him home immediately, she’s going to lose her shit. It makes him smile, but he feels his heart thudding in his chest with something heavier than excitement.

Maybe Nat was right, he thinks, as he holds open the door to the bar for her. Maybe the best way to get over one person  _ is _ to get under another.

* * *

“Do you have to go so soon?” Darcy’s mother asks her, standing on her front lawn while she watches her daughter lug her duffel bag back into the truck, Steve refusing to let her open her door for herself. Darcy glances over Lori’s shoulder at Julianna, propped on Corey’s hip, her chubby, pink little hand raised in a sad wave.

The three days between Corey and Juli arriving and today have passed in a blur. If she could, she’d spend every waking moment of this nightmare helping her niece put together the Frozen puzzle - the only toy Juli had wanted to bring after her mother and sister had disappeared - on the rug in her childhood living room. Darcy’s heard “Let It Go” more times than a human ever should; but she falls asleep to it the night after Corey and Juli get in.

“I’ll be okay, Mom,” she mumbles, and pulls Lori in close. “Gotta go save the world with all my superhero friends. You know?”

Her mom chuckles wetly, and Darcy feels her fingers combing through her hair. “That’s my girl. You call me everyday, now, okay? So I know you’re alright. So I know you’re - you’re safe.”

“I will, Mom. I promise.” When she steps back, Darcy nods to Corey on the porch. “Don’t let him baby you. He needs you as much as you need him.”

She swears, the smile that spreads over Lori’s face could power a lighthouse. “I’ll make sure he keeps his nose clean. You do the same with that one. Don’t you let him Captain you around.” Lori flicks her eyes toward Steve, who stands steadfast at the rear passenger side with his arms folded over his immense chest. He hears her, because of course he does, and shakes his head with a laugh.

“You’re mistaken if you think I stand any chance at Captaining her, ma’am,” he says honestly.

“And you’re damn right about that. Take care of yourself, Rogers.” She tips an imaginary hat and gives Darcy another squeeze for good measure, before pressing her lips to her daughter’s forehead, telling her she loves her, and sending her off.

The first ten minutes of silence in the cab of the truck feel like he’s quiet to give her some room. For this she is thankful; she pulls her duffel bag out of the backseat and hugs it to her chest, just closing her eyes and feeling the weight of it pressing into her. He turns the radio on softly, turning the dial to an oldies station. Her seat begins to warm from the bottom, and she closes her eyes, as if she could pretend that Steve can’t see the tears rolling down her nose.

He clears his throat fifteen minutes in, and she feels her eyes snap open, her gaze aimed out the window. Trees on the side of the highway flash past, eaten up by the horizon.

“I talked to Nat earlier. Tony Stark is on base. Along with a few other people.” His eyes bore into the road in front of him; his arm is entirely flexed with his hand white-knuckled on the wheel, and his jaw is clenched. “So we might have a welcome wagon waiting for us when we get back.”

“Okay.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Who else showed up?”

“Few people. Carol Danvers, with Tony and a few...I guess, aliens. Clint Barton, his son. A guy with a van.”

“Was that meant to sound sketchy? Because it sounds sketchy.” She smiles, hoping to lift the strangeness from the air.

“Nat said she thinks he knows Scott Lang - the Ant-Man.” It’s as if each word pains him on its way out. And as if he can’t even  _ look _ at her. “He was in Berlin with us. He and Clint took a plea deal to be with their families. Can’t fault ‘em for it.”

“Are you okay?”

He looks at her, finally, his eyes softening but the rest of him still just as tense. “What?”

“You’re all...I don’t know, twitterpated.” She inhales deeply, and for a brief second, her heart stutters. There’s something different about the way he smells today - something decidedly not Steve-ish. “You...smell like perfume,” she says slowly, weighing each word before it comes out. Her eyes narrow, and when the tips of his ears go red, a rush of suspicions fill her mind. “Did you...were you with a girl last night?”

“What? No,” he says, too quickly to be believable. And now he’s resumed not making eye contact.

She wants to laugh, because of course he’d deny getting laid even though he’s a quality hunk of man meat, but there’s something else, too, that keeps her from getting there. Her stomach aches a little bit - but she forces her smile to widen, trains her eyes on him even though he won’t look back at her.

“What was her name?” she teases softly, leaning her elbow onto the center console.

He sighs. “Madison.”

“Do you...want to talk about it?” He strikes her as the ‘a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell’ type, but there’s no harm in asking. He chews on his lip, his gaze still fixed straight ahead.

“Do you  _ really  _ want to hear about it?”

She shrugs. “I’m having Avenger sexytime gossip withdrawals.”

“Jane told you about her and Thor?”

“Sometimes.” She smiles again, and pokes him gently in the side. “Too much of a gentleman?”

He pushes out a strangled groan, from the question or from her poking him, she can’t be sure. “She picked me up at a bar. We went to her apartment and listened to SZA and...yeah.”

“It was good?”

He looks like he wishes he could disappear into his seat. “You’re pushing your luck, Lewis.”

“I mean, I know for guys sex is like pizza.” He lifts an eyebrow, finally glancing at her with skepticism. “You know, pizza’s always good. Even when it’s not great, it’s good.”

“It was fine, Darcy,” he says, his voice growing quiet and weary.

“Okay,” she says back, knowing better than to continue pressing him. Her heart settles somewhere in her stomach, and she pulls her duffel to her chest, unsure as to why she wants to keep it so close. “I’m not gonna bug you about it, but...you deserve good shit like that, okay? I feel like maybe you don’t think you do, but you do. Alright?”

She can feel his eyes on her, and when he speaks again, the sound escapes his lips quietly, almost gently, and the tension inside the truck seems to have shifted. She knows he’s not mad at her, but there’s something he isn’t telling her, or something he can’t. It almost starts to feel like there’s something she can’t tell him either, but she can’t put her finger on what.

“Okay."


	8. ||eight||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back on base, Steve has to deal with his feelings and the aftermath of the Snap as it relates to his team. Darcy gets a job and possibly a new best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are mentions of seizures and character death in this chapter. Sorry :(

_ How should we like it were the stars to burn _ _  
_ _ With a passion for us we could not return? _ _  
_ _ If equal affection cannot be, _ _  
_ _ Let the more loving one be me. _

_ \- The More Loving One” - W.H. Auden _

As it turns out, the welcome wagon is smaller than Steve had made it sound. When they finally park the truck in the garage and Darcy slings her duffel bag over her shoulder, trailing a few steps ahead of him toward the dormitories, only Natasha, Rhodes, Pepper, a blonde woman in a leather jacket, and the man who must be Tony Stark are waiting in the small pavilion between the L building and the dorms. Darcy senses some trepidation when Steve sees Stark - he hangs back while Natasha extends her arms to hug her.

“You okay?” Nat whispers, and Darcy nods, exhausted, feeling the tired all the way down to her bones.

“Yeah. Do I...have to stick around for the inquisition or…?”

“‘Fraid so.” She squeezes Darcy’s hand reassuringly, and guides her to the blonde woman while Steve shakes hands with Rhodes at Tony’s side. “Darcy, I want you to meet Carol Danvers. Carol is...unfair.” The woman offers her hand, and when Darcy takes it, it’s both warm and hard, the shake familiar but not excessively friendly.

“She’s just jealous she can’t shoot fire out of her hands and feet,” Carol chuckles, and the smiling once-over she gives Darcy feels evaluative and well-intentioned at the same time. “Heard lots of good things about you from the science department, Darcy Lewis. Lookin’ forward to working with you. At least on this planet.”

“Likewise. When you say on _ this _ planet - ”

“It’s a big galaxy. Blue chick on base isn’t the first blue chick I’ve dealt with.”

There’s a blue chick on base. Cool.

Natasha must see that the talk of fire-shooting and blue people doesn’t exactly add ease to Darcy’s already sleepy state, so she nods toward the L building. “Why don’t we get inside? We have a couple of things to go over before you guys can get some rest. I know it’s been a long few days.”

“Yup. Sure has.” She’s certain that she’s a little shorter-tempered than usual because of the long drive and the pain of leaving her family for a bunch of people who, for all intents and purposes, are little more than strangers for her. She sits herself on the couch that Natasha indicates, closes her eyes, and presses her fingers into her lids, fuzzy blue spots punctuating the darkness. When she opens them again, Tony Stark stands across from her, hands on his knees, frowning.

“Lewis. iPod girl. You sent angry emails to SHIELD every day for two years after Coulson and company cleaned out your little workspaces in New Mexico.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And if I recall correctly - you hacked Coulson’s personal email for a little bit, too, yes?”

She decides to rub her eyes again; it feels good, and it seems like, despite what Natasha might promise, they’ll be here a while. “Yup. Any other third degree you’ve got for me the first time I meet you?”

“No third degree. Just like to know the components I’m working with. Which goes the same for you, Rogers.”

“I’m an open book, Tony. Not like I got much else left to lose.” Darcy still has the heels of her hands pushed into her eyes when she feels Steve fall into the seat beside her, his weight bouncing her a little on her couch cushion. She finally removes them when the door closes behind the last person entering the room, and spies through the technicolor squiggles Pepper Potts by the door, looking both apprehensive and powerful at once.

It’s Rhodes who speaks next, opening a thick manila folder to place on the coffee table in front of them, chock full of legal looking papers. “Things have changed even since you guys left. We’re just stuck trying to create a protocol to enforce.”

He hands the first paper, the most important looking one, to Steve first. Steve squints while he reads, his lips moving ghostlike over each word. “Suspending the Accords? Who gets to make these kinds of decisions?”

“Suddenly you want them back?” Tony asks, with more than a little bite to his voice.

“What executive board gets to say yea or nay on stuff like this?” He ignores Tony’s sarcasm, gaze directed solely on Rhodey.

“This is what’s left of the US government, man. Have to support some kind of structure.” Rhodey passes another document to Darcy, this one more on the topic of diplomatic relations around the world. “There’s a United Nations conference this weekend. One democratically elected or nominated leader from every major power comes together, secret location. Hurting on the international level means we come together on the international level.”

“You are officially no longer a fugitive,” Natasha chimes in, waving a paper sheet of her own at him. “Rhodey has negotiated down the Accords so we can operate the way we need to. With some documentation.” This is when she looks at Darcy. “Which is why we’re offering you a formal job.”

“What?” All she wants is to fall into her bed and sleep for the next decade.

“We need to have you documented on base to keep operations legit,” Pepper adds, folding her hands under her chin. “You’ll be paid twice as much as the lab supervisors we had in Manhattan, because you’ll be the only one in charge of the lab here. And _ when _ we get the world sorted out, your name goes down in history along with the rest of everyone who facilitated it.”

“With all due respect, Ms. Potts, is that what you think I care about?” She leans back into the couch, feeling her hair fall down her back uncomfortably - fuck, what she wouldn’t do for a shower right now. “Look, guys, I appreciate the sentiment of my contributions being all important and whatever, but I’m here for Jane the way I’ve always been. I don’t care about being remembered as the official Avengers science liaison. I just want my...I just want to help get our people back.”

“That’s not just it,” Steve says abruptly. He’s frowning, down at the paperwork and then back up past Rhodey, past Pepper, straight at Tony. “It’s the liability waiver.”

His jaw clenches, and Darcy drops her hands, filing through the stack of papers to find the liability waiver he’s talking about. Of course. “Are you doing this for everyone? For Rocket and Thor and everyone?”

“That’s a good point,” Carol says, her arms folded over her chest, and for a moment Darcy had almost forgotten she was there. “I was presumed dead until I linked up with Nick in ‘95. Shouldn’t I be signing off on something? So I can pay all the taxes I missed out on up to now, shit like that. Sue you all when I crack a nail fighting evil aliens?” She flashes Darcy a thin smirk, as if to let her know she’s on her side.

Rhodey rolls his eyes as diplomatically as ever. “We don’t have to stress about the paperwork for that right now.” He focuses his gaze on Darcy, chin dipping towards his chest. “I want it to be clear that you know the dangers of the job and that you, of sound mind and body, understand and accept the bullshit that affiliating with Avengers gets us into.”

“Would’ve been nice if the Destroyer or the Dark Elves would’ve checked in with me about all the life-endangering shit they put me through. Or made me sign off on it.” Carol and Natasha offer her their smiles, but pretty much everyone else maintains the poker face. “Yeah. I accept the job and all the risks that come with it.”

Stark’s gaze fixes on her, like he has a question he doesn’t know if he’s ready to ask. “Thor and Foster have talked you up, you know.”

She shrugs. “So would Erik, if he were here. That’s what we’re doing, right? Getting people back?”

“Yeah, that’s what we’re doing. For the people we _ can _ get back.” Now, in this light, she recognizes the gauntness of him, the thin lines raking across his forehead, the dark bags under his eyes to carry the weight of what he thinks is the world. “Alright. Welcome to the Avengers, Lewis. Think I’m going to get some rest.”

Steve tenses beside her, like he wants to cut in and address Tony directly now, but with Stark’s back to him, Pepper just shakes her head. Steve closes his mouth, nodding back before letting his chin drop. The two of them stride back out toward the dorms, Pepper looking like she’s supporting half his already lean weight.

“Is this really about injury and death liability?” she asks Rhodey, once the door shuts behind them.

Rhodey takes in and releases a heavy breath. “Little bit of that. And a little bit of Tony figuring out what the hell he’s come back to.”

“Come back to?”

“I brought him back to Earth,” Carol chimes in, ruffling a hand back through her hair. “He was lost in space since the thing with Thanos. We just got back here yesterday.”

Darcy frowns. “_ He _ was in space? Stark?”

“The planet they’d been fighting on, he and Nebula? They started out with five more people. All dust now. Ship ran out of fuel not long after they got off Titan, they were in pretty terrible shape, and...I wandered across their distress signal. He’s been off planet for almost a month.”

“Shit.” She scratches at the back of her neck. “That’s...fucking heavy.”

Carol gives a noncommittal tilt of the head. “I’d want to get the lay of the land if I were in his shoes, figure out what I’m coming home to. Granted, I’ve spent a hell of a lot of time off planet. Sometimes even Earth doesn’t feel like home.”

Steve sighs, looking into his lap. “He wanted to see where I’m at. If he has to be up against me _ and _ up against Thanos, wherever that bastard is.”

Rhodes turns his eyes to Darcy again. “Speaking of Thanos, Jane and Banner are gonna need your help here soon. They’re working on an...energy tracking thing? To see if they can find energy signatures on the stones, or on him.”

She scoffs a little, doing her best to lift only one eyebrow, like she’s seen in the movies. “They need _ my _ help tracking down the purple people eater across the universe?”

“Foster says you’re the best damn lab assistant she’s ever had. According to her, you got her and Selvig to conclusions they never would’ve worked out on their own. Too stuck in the details to see the big picture.” He purses his lips, giving a good-natured shrug. “Not that I know too much about all the science, but you seem pretty sharp to me.”

Darcy draws in a deep breath and releases it a moment later. It’s hard to believe that just a month ago, she was serving scones at a bakery across the ocean. Now, pulled back into superheroes and gods and US bureaucracy, it’s like everyone expects her to be able to help save the world. Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, _ James Rhodes _ vetting her to work with the Avengers? Fucking unreal.

“I think...I’m going to go take a shower and a nap. And then figure out how to deal with all this ridiculousness in a hundred years, when I wake up. Fair?”

Rhodey settles on a smile, friendly enough to feel like some kind of twisted big brother at the end of the world. “Fair. Go take your nap, Lewis.”

She pretends to bow to him, then lugs herself off the couch, slinging her bag back over her shoulder. Carol and Nat flank her, ready to follow, but Steve lifts a hand.

“Nat, can I...do you have a minute to talk?”

She pauses, making eye contact with Darcy as if to ask whether that’s okay. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, asking Darcy permission. She raises one shoulder, too lazy to shrug all the way, and Carol loops an arm through hers to guide her back toward the dorms.

“Are you staying?” Darcy asks, hating the way her voice comes out so small. Carol is intense, almost a little intimidating, but she has a kind face, and Darcy can see in her eyes, kind intentions.

“Maybe for a night. We’ve got a big galaxy, and Earth wasn’t the only world that lost a lot.”

“You have a spaceship, too?”

A proud smirk crosses her lips. “Sometimes, but...I don’t always need one.”

_ Fucking unreal _. “I swear to God, if you don’t have at least a spacesuit…”

“I’ve got a suit that goes into space, sometimes.”

“Is that your power? You can, like, fly through space and live without a spacesuit?”

Carol turns her head, squinting eyes searching around them for something. “Okay...uh...Stark might throw a hissyfit about this, but this ain’t his rodeo anymore, so…” She points to a bush on the far end of the compound, little more than a dark cloud on the grass in the distance. “Watch.”

They both square their shoulders in the direction of the bush, and Darcy watches Carol’s eyes close. Then open. Then glow white-hot, along with the hand between her and Darcy.

She thrusts her hand out in front of her, and a ball of white bursts from it, like fire, and shoots across the field, reducing the bush to a smoking pile of ash.

When her eyes aren’t glowing and her hair isn’t doing the weird tingly thing it was doing before, she turns back to Darcy with a smile that’s equally bashful and proud.

“What. The _ fuck _?” is probably the smartest thing Darcy can muster up without turning her brain inside out right now.

They resume their walk back to the dorms, but Carol leans toward her conspiratorially. “You oughta see me in a fight.”

“Let’s hope I don’t, dude. That was amazing.”

“Thanks.” She slips her arm back through Darcy’s, not pulling her too close this time. “You know, you’re handling the apocalypse pretty damn well for someone who doesn’t know what she’s getting into.”

“Thanks,” Darcy says, yet again at a loss for words. She remains at a loss for words all the way until they’re in front of her door, and then it’s less because she’s standing next to yet another person who could easily kill her if she wanted to, and more because she feels like she’s been walked home from a very bizarre first date. “It’s not like I mind, but...why are you being so nice to me?”

This time, Carol’s smile is neither bashful nor proud, but full of a real warmth that Darcy last saw only hours ago, when she’d left her mother’s arms.

“Seeing you playing on the same level with Tony and Steve, and being able to stomach all that testosterone, even when you’ve had so much taken from you...reminded me of what it’s like. To be human.” She shrugs, breaking eye contact and letting her gaze turn light, easygoing again. “I’ll catch you around. Yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Carol.”

She unlocks the door and shoulders it open, letting her bag fall by the closet, and barely makes it to the bed before flopping down on her stomach, burying her face in her arms, and falling the hell asleep.

* * *

“What’s on your mind, soldier?”

Steve props his hands on his hips, looking into the distance. Smoke drifts off a dark spot on the lawn, and he shakes his head; can’t be bothered to wonder about it.

“That was it?” When he looks back at Natasha, she’s folded her arms over her chest, the expression on her face somewhere south of resigned. “He comes in, starts interrogating Darcy, and then waltzes right back out, like nothing ever happened?”

“He was lost in space, Steve. Did you want the full inquisition the day after he touched back down? The world he came back to, it’s completely different from how he left it.”

The pointed glance she gives him presses her meaning in deep, like salt to the wound. “He can’t avoid me forever. Especially not if he’s staying here.” He pauses, looks into her eyes. “He is staying here. Right?”

“Pretty sure that was what he meant when he gave me a dirty look yesterday and reminded me just how important it is to keep the team together.”

Steve lets pass a humorless laugh. “You said Carol brought him down. With others?”

She answers his request for the debrief by nodding toward the bench in the courtyard, and doesn’t wait for him to follow before she starts towards it, plopping herself on one side, and crossing her feet under her. “Two. One male, Kraglin, a decent enough co-pilot, according to Carol, member of basically the biggest biker gang in space. One female, Nebula, who was kidnapped by Thanos as a child from her home planet. He turned her into a cyborg, and an assassin.” Her face is trained into submission, but he sees the darkness in her eyes. “I can respect her upbringing. And her penchant for homicide.”

He smiles, nudging her gently with his elbow. “You’re not so homicidal anymore.”

“On a good day.” She smiles back briefly, but this time the sadness prickles in the corners of her eyes, and she lifts a hand to dry a tear before it can slide down her cheek. “Um...Clint doesn’t leave the room with Nate except to get food.”

“Laura, and Lila, and Cooper, all…”

She shakes her head, unable to meet his eyes this time. “Laura and Lila dusted. Cooper…” She sucks in a trembling breath, her fingers crawling across her forearms to grip her elbows tight. “He watched them disappear, and the shock...Clint thinks he had a massive seizure. He was in the barn when it happened. By the time he got back to the house, the girls were ash, and Cooper was dead.”

What feels like yet another punch to the gut must be the irrevocable and, what he’d thought impossible, further breaking of his heart. Even if, somehow, he can bring the others back, Cooper, Clint’s boy, the good kid, the smart kid with his jokes and his unmistakable sunny smile, is never coming back. Not with the stones, not without them.

“I’m so sorry,” is all he can think to say. It is nothing.

“I don’t like seeing him like this, Steve. I can’t take it.”

He turns his hand over, palm facing up, and squeezes when she takes it. “You’re my best friend in this world, Nat. We...have to keep going.”

“I know,” she mumbles, and her head comes to rest on his shoulder. “We’re going to.”

“I tried your terrible advice, you know.” He does his best to muster up a smile, but it feels like a grimace on his lips. “Picked up a girl at a bar.”

“You didn’t,” she says, her voice turning the lightest shade of playful.

“You’re right, I didn’t. She picked _ me _up.”

“She have a name?”

“Madison.”

Her face softens, and he feels the tension in his shoulder slackening. “So, definitely born after 1984.”

“She was...young...ish. Do I want to know how you know?”

“Add the movie _ Splash _ to your list. People only started using the first name Madison for a girl after that came out. Very underrated Tom Hanks flick.” She pulls her hand out of his and leans on the handrail of the bench beside her. “How was it?”

He curses his ears for going as red as he knows they are right now. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it yet.”

She punches him in the arm. It doesn’t hurt, but he rubs it dramatically anyway, for her sake, and lets himself smile.

“It was fine,” he says, echoing himself earlier from the ride over. Nat doesn’t buy it, though. Not like he really expected her to. “It was...okay.”

“You had performance issues.”

The blush is damn near radiating off him now. “I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t get...my mind clear.”

“She pop into your head every time you were just getting into it?” He nods, biting down on his lower lip. “That’s rough. How’d Madison handle it?”

“I faked it.” Nat raises her eyebrows. “Don’t do that, I just...made the faces and the noises, and tossed the condom in the toilet before she could see what was in it. Or what wasn’t, rather.”

“Christ. That’s fucking rough, Rogers.” She sucks her lower lip into her mouth and lets it loose with a pop. “I don’t know how to ask this without sounding callous, but...you’re not planning on seeing her again, are you?”

A sick feeling rolls through his stomach, and the honest answer comes spilling out of him, in spite of the note he’d left on her nightstand. “Is it bad if I say no?”

She shrugs. “Let’s say, hypothetically, you were to go out with her again. Is it so that you can spend time with her and enjoy her company and get to know her? Or is it to keep trying to get over Darcy?”

He doesn’t have to answer. He knows it’s written all over his face. “How do I get over her, then? On the ride over, all I could think about was...how awful I felt about sleeping with someone else, and how it really shouldn’t matter, because she’s still grieving her fiance and once everything is sorted out, she’ll have him back. She can be happy.”

Nat goes quiet for a moment, her eyes trailing back to the burning spot in the distance. “What happens if we don’t sort everything out? Get everybody back?”

He offers her a weak smile, letting one hand squeeze down on her arm. “Not an option."

* * *

Within the week, Jane’s status as Darcy’s best friend is being strongly challenged by one Luis Esparza, who, within his first three days on the compound, has officially been banned from the lab. He’s also clever enough to show up on the dot when they move their work from the lab to the great outdoors.

“Luis, with all the love in the world, if you’re not bringing snacks, please stay away from the mad scientists. I can’t protect you every time they get close to going feral.”

Even when he’s being chastised, his entire face lights up. “You mean like Doctor Banner, ‘cause when he gets all stressed out or mad he turns into the Hulk and has to smash all the stuff he sees?” Bruce cringes a little, trying to look like he’s not taking it personally. “Nah, man, it’s cool, ‘cause, like, Scotty? When he turned big, he would smash stuff not even on purpose, like, because being so big for such a long time would put him to sleep, you know? So he’d pass out in the middle of the city and crush a bunch of things - one time he flipped my cousin Ricky’s pupusa truck, and Ricky got this scar that looks like the Golden Gate Bridge, and - ”

“That’s a great idea,” Darcy says, and puts a hand to his wrist. “Do you know the best food trucks around here?”

“I haven’t explored that yet.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “Do you want me to find some food? ‘Cause I can find some food, like Kelsey makes hella good baked stuff, but I don’t know if I should start a keto diet? I’ve heard it’s not good in the long term, but - ”

“No pastries, no keto. Please. And...we’ll get this thing worked out as soon as we can. If Scott’s in there or if we can find him, we will.” His van sits in the parking lot behind her, the back doors flung open to reveal what she can only describe as a massive flux capacitor in the backseat. Jane and Bruce are standing at a control panel they’ve shifted together a few feet from the open doors, and Tony has the hood popped open to investigate the insides.

“Shawarma, if you can find it,” Tony calls out, wiping his greasy hands on the rag at his side. “See what Nat’s up to in L, she’ll get you the cash and car keys you need.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Stark.” He pauses, his goofy smile still on his lips, before he realizes he’s been standing there a moment too long, and nods on his way to the L building, muttering the word “shawarma” the whole way there.

“Things normal up there?” Darcy asks him. He pushes his goggles up to his forehead, the clean space from his nose to his eyebrows jarring against the sooty dirt coating the rest of his face.

“Aside from desperately needing an oil change? Pretty much. I’m just adding a few modifications to stabilize the structure when we hit the lightshow.”

“When do we hit the lightshow?”

“Tonight,” Jane answers from beside her. “It’s too humid right now to predict how this thing will react to the electromagnetic field we have.”

“I could predict that, if you invite me to your nerd meetings.” Rocket strolls up from the dorms, flanked by Nebula and Kraglin. In Nebula’s eyes is the cagey suspicion of someone backed into a corner, whereas Kraglin smiles cautiously, like a kid on his first day of school. “Be too humid tonight, too. Your best shot’ll be tomorrow morning, ten minutes shy of four a.m. You,” he says, pointing at Darcy, “bring the tunes.”

“Don't discount my tunes just yet, Fozzy Bear,” Tony interrupts, almost sounding offended. Darcy rolls her eyes, offering a hand for Kraglin to shake.

“We haven’t officially met yet. Darcy Lewis.” After he lets go, she holds it out for Nebula, who just looks at it between them.

“Kraglin,” he says shakily, glancing at the flux thing. “We thought it might be a good idea to see if there was some helpin’ we might do. If anything from the Benatar could tell you somethin’ about this...thing.”

Their spaceship. Right. “What do you think, Rocket?”

He’s pacing around the van, peeks at the flux thing in the backseat with his head cocked to one side. “It ain’t too far off from the kind of wiring we use to get through jump points.” Stark almost does a double-take, the wrenches around him clattering to the ground.

“Show me.”

“You could say please,” Rocket grumbles, but starts for the hangar on the far end of the lot anyway. Kraglin nods nervously at Darcy before he follows, and Nebula holds her gaze, her expression impenetrable, trailing after in their steads.

“Nobody said the end of the world was going to be so fucking weird,” Darcy breathes, turning her attention back to Jane and Bruce. “I heard there was some energy signature tracing stuff happening. We’re getting back to that after we rescue Ant-Man?”

“To our understanding, this thing was meant for exploring the Quantum Realm with some attachment to our line of reality.” Jane frowns at the control panel. “Figuring out how this works and what Scott might know could help us get a handle on tracking Thanos and the stones.”

“You had one in you, do you think there’s some kind of...connection you might have?”

Jane closes her eyes, taking a deep inhale and releasing a deep exhale. “I would love to know if the fabric of reality were reaching out to me at any given time...but I don’t think it’s, like, a residual thing.”

Darcy chews on her lip and shrugs anyway. “Might as well ask. You’ll figure things out with your big brain or your instincts or...anything you put your mind to.”

“Maybe,” Jane muses. “I can’t do it without you, though.”

She smiles. “Kelsey...and Luis now...are the ones shoving food down your throat. I’m just here to make sure you don’t blow yourself up.”

“Don’t give me that. Tell me, when I’m up for thirty-six hours straight and I can barely see my hand in front of my face for all the coffee I’ve drunk, that what I’m doing isn’t working and obviously it’s something else. Help me see the forest for the trees?”

“You know...I do love me some tree,” she smiles, and squeezes Jane’s hand. Jane smiles mistily back.

“I miss getting Erik stoned off his ass. I miss Erik in general.” She leans in close, lowering her voice. “Erik was also a way better lab partner.”

“Uh-oh...trouble in paradise?” Darcy glances over at Bruce, who keeps looking over and trying to look like he’s not looking over.

“He’s distracting. For such a nice, mild-mannered kind of guy, Bruce has an awfully hard time keeping his hands to himself.” Darcy’s about to whistle, but Jane giggles, pinching her gently. “Oh, shut up. He’s nice.”

“Oh, I know he’s nice.” Her two front teeth worry her lower lip. “Thor taking it okay? I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him since we got back.”

“We haven’t really talked about it. He acts happy for me, even if he isn’t really, but I think he’s got other things on his mind. I mean, as much as the rest of us do. Y’know?”

Yeah. There’s been talk of a girl, a warrior, in New Asgard, and though the compound is relatively small, there’s still a rumor mill to keep up with. Kelsey has mentioned once or twice that Thor’s visits overseas have more to do with the Valkyrie than they do with the fishing excursions that he stammers about when he gets back.

“So you told me about your mom and Corey and Juli, but you never told me how road-tripping with the good Captain went.” Jane’s voice has a hint of mischief to it, and her eyes more than a hint.

“He was cool,” she says, suddenly feeling a bit feverish behind the ears. “He’s a good guy.”

“That’s the dirt you have for me from your all-American road trip? He’s a good guy?”

“I don’t know, dude, what do you want to know? It’s not like we were having late-night sleeping bag confessions. You know you’re my only gal for late-night sleeping bag confessions.”

“Yeah?” Jane challenges, eyebrows raised at the space just above Darcy’s left shoulder. “Then why is he making a beeline for us right now?”

It’s as if all the air has been punched right out of her gut, but when Darcy turns to confirm what Jane is saying, there he is, in his tight white tee and sweats, two cups of iced coffee in hand, coming straight at them. There’s something unreadable in his expression, but the muscle in his jaw clenches before he musters up a smile.

“Jane. Darcy.”

“For us, Captain? You shouldn’t have,” Jane teases, snatching her drink before it can be offered. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“Thanks,” Darcy manages when he hands the second one over.

“I, uh...I’m not the biggest science nut, but...it’s not everyday someone rolls onto the grounds with something that could help save the world.”

“Well, we did.” Jane smiles pleasantly enough, but the elbow digging into Darcy’s side says differently. Steve takes it in stride, smiling back.

“You did. I can’t begin to tell you - both of you - how good it’s been to have you on base.”

“Thanks, Cap. It’s been real nice working with you.” Jane takes a long sip of her coffee, not once taking her eyes off him. “Anything in particular we can do for you?”

“Actually.” Abruptly he clears his throat, one large hand coming to the back of his neck to scratch at a spot near his ear. “I was hoping to have a word with you, Darcy. If you’ve got a minute to spare.”

Her heart stammers traitorously in her chest. “I - yeah...sure. Of course.”

Steve nods to the door into the lab, but lets her lead the way inside. After the door closes behind him, she props herself up on her designated stool by Jane’s workstation. “Is, uh...is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s good, I just...I wanted to check in with you. How you’ve been since we’ve been back.” He looks like he has more that he wants to say, but just when Darcy opens her mouth, he rushes out, “I haven’t reached out, and I’m sorry I haven’t, I just...I know it’s a lot of pressure with everything going on. I didn’t know if you needed some space.”

“You’re good,” she says softly, shaking her head. He’s got this look in his eyes, something that reminds her of the choked feeling there was in the truck on their way home, but it’s not something she could put into words if she tried. “Are _ you _ okay? You’ve been off since you came to pick me up.”

Pink fills his cheeks. “I guess I’m...embarrassed.”

Darcy frowns. Her finger drifts absentmindedly to the stone on her left hand, a nervous habit she’s picked up since Ian put it there. “About what? About getting some?”

He doesn’t have to answer. The darkening of the pink in his face tells her all she needs to know.

“No, dude, don’t - ” She can’t stop the strange little laugh that comes out in one breath. “Don’t be embarrassed about hooking up in Philly. We all have needs, right? And, like...you already have to eat a lot, so your super-bod probably has super-needs.” She regrets it as soon as it leaves her mouth, but he starts to laugh, too, and even with how little she really knows about him, it’s not hard to let loose when Steve does.

“That’s - yeah, you're probably right. You’re probably right.” He sighs through a smile, lifting a hand to run it back through that perfect mane of hair. “I guess I...I didn’t want it to feel like...I was taking advantage. I know it’s hard...missing your person.” When she looks up, his eyes are on her ring, and the finger sliding it back and forth. She stops.

“You had someone kind of like that, huh? Peggy?”

Steve tilts his head to the side, nodding a little. “Yeah, we kind of missed our chance. But she was happy, in the end. Had a family.” The smile on his lips turns reminiscent, and he shifts off the desk behind him, standing tall. “She deserved it. I just, uh...am trying to learn to do stuff without regrets. You know?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“I guess I…” He draws in what looks like a painful breath, finally meeting her eyes. “You told me to remember that I deserve good things. I guess I want you to remember that you do, too.”

There’s pain in his eyes. And something meaningful, too, something that makes her stomach turn and lift and swoop all at once. Something familiar that she hasn’t felt since before the Dark Elves, and yet something so new that she’s almost terrified of even trying to put a finger on it. Steve is only a few feet away, and he feels so close and so far at the same time.

“I...thank you, I - ” _ Say something, you idiot. Use your words. _

The door behind her swings open, and the sound nearly makes her jump out of her skin. She grips her coffee tighter, eyes wide as she turns to see Bruce in the doorway.

“Sorry, guys, uh...just need to grab something from my station. Don’t mind me.” He ducks his head down, abashed, and heads straight to his own desk.

“I should...get back to helping,” Darcy says, clearing her throat, and when she glances back at Steve, he’s nodding a little too fast.

“Yeah. Yeah, no worries. Um...we should...I’ll ask Nat about arranging another movie night. Could be fun, get everybody together.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.” Everything goes silent, except for the very noticeable sound of Bruce rummaging through his things. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” he says, the deep rumble of his voice making her heart clench in her chest as she shoulders open the door outside. “See you around.”


	9. ||nine||

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chap is a little shorter than I was hoping for, but this felt like a good place to end the progression of how things are going forward. Hope you enjoy <3  
(And if you want to have a listen to some of the songs that inspired me while writing this, I've got a playlist: here

_History repeats itself. Somebody says this._  
_History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop,_  
_over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters._  
_History is a little man in a brown suit_  
_trying to define a room he is outside of._  
_I know history. There are many names in history_  
_but none of them are ours._

_\- "Little Beast" - Richard Siken_

“Coffee?” Kelsey is a godsend, passing around every mug on the damn compound, coming at exactly the same time that Darcy feels her eyelids fluttering. “Christ, it’s about a whole day past my bedtime.”

Darcy has never imagined exactly how directly she’d be involved in the much rumored Saving of the World, but if it ever crossed her mind, she’s anticipated herself in the background. Maybe handling her taser, watching Jane and Erik do science, watching Thor wield Myeuh-Myeuh and cast thunder on his unsuspecting foes. She doesn’t expect herself to be at the helm of the control panel, standing between Jane and Bruce Banner, glaring down the open doors of a crappy van, with the rest of the Avengers and her boss from a London bakery poised around them in a semicircle.

“Six months ago, you ever think you’d be here?” Darcy returns, keeping one eye on the barometer.

“Six months ago, I was lucky if I could get William to add a blueberry lemon scone to the menu.” Her laugh rings like a gentle bell through the clear night, one beacon of hope to cut through all the shit. “Today I’m Tony Stark’s personal caterer.”

“Pastry chef,” he corrects, in the metallic timbre of his Iron Man suit. He lifts his mask long enough to pause his soldering on the flux thing and aim a pointed look at the two of them. “You’re my pastry chef and my lab manager. And I’m going to need one of  _ those _ \- ” He raises his eyebrows at Darcy’s mug. “ - in a paper cup. Ceramic’s slippery with the fingers on the suit.”

Kelsey props her hands on her hips and gives him a look Darcy’s only seen her give her daughter. “Say please and I’ll think on it. Yeah?”

He sighs like an actual teenager. “Please.”

God, Kelsey’s the  _ real _ superhero here.

She turns toward the kitchen, but before taking the step to head back inside, leans close to Darcy to whisper in her ear. “Alright?”

“Mhm,” she hums through her nose, not looking up. “I’m good. Promise.”

She doesn’t have to be looking to know that Kelsey doesn’t believe her.

Kelsey was the first one to ask, the first one to notice something different. After Steve and Darcy got back, and especially after the weird talk in the lab just a few hours before, Kelsey had been the one to offer a shoulder and a fresh chocolate chip cookie. Darcy had rested her head on Kelsey’s chest and let herself cry, with no solid reason for it.

“This sounds like the kind of crying comes with a broken heart, love,” Kelsey had mumbled, combing her fingers through Darcy’s hair.

“My heart’s  _ been  _ broken, Kels. I miss Ian, I miss my family...” She’d sniffled, and rubbed at the bubbling tears forming on the tip of her nose. “I don’t know why it’s so different now.”

“Oh, darling…” Kelsey looped her index under a wavy strand and brushed it gently behind her ear. “If I have to tell you what it is, you’re not ready to hear it.”

“Then don’t.” She didn’t need to hear any of it out loud. Not the sick feeling in her stomach that had come with Steve checking in on her, not the heaviness or the heat of the air in the lab that had suddenly dissipated when Bruce entered the room.

Not Madison’s name out loud, again,  _ not _ Madison.

Even now, there’s no need for words, no need to get a finger on the pulse of what the hell it is going on. She only turns to look once she knows Kelsey’s on her way back to the kitchen.

“Can I get a time update, Lewis?” Tony’s mask slides back over his face, and she badly wishes that he’d keep it off when he says her name.

“Three seventeen,” she yawns, propping her coffee to her lips. The steam almost makes it worth burning her tongue on her too-fast sip. “T-minus thirty-six minutes until optimum weather conditions.”

“FRIDAY, select my late night playlist and shuffle at seventy-five percent volume.”

Heavy drumbeats and electric guitar flood the outside parking lot, making Jane flinch from beside her. Bruce’s fingers jam into his ears, and he tries shouting over the music to get Tony’s attention. Even Darcy can’t make out what he’s saying a couple feet away from him.

“ _ Boss, I think seventy-five might be a little loud for everyone else here _ .”

She’s sure he’s rolling his eyes behind the mask, but the volume lowers anyway, the heavy rock more thunderous now than deafening. At least she can hear Jane going, “Jesus H. Christ” from right beside her now.

Kelsey comes back around to refresh people’s coffee, to make them look her in the eyes so she can send them off to bed or give them the go-ahead to keep working. One person she doesn’t have to continuously check on is Luis, whose outrageously high energy keeps him bouncing from station to station to nosily boost morale and inspect the work they’re doing on his van. He insists that it’s okay if the car doesn’t run when they’re done with it, as long as they get Scotty back and make sure that he can salvage the horn.

“It’s  _ La Cucaracha _ ,” he tells Darcy, offering her a handful of marshmallows for the second mug of hot chocolate that Kelsey’s pressed on her. “If we can, like, help save the world by gettin’ Scotty out, that’s all worth it, but this was the van I got after my mom died. And my dad got deported. And my girl left me. So it means a lot, but it’s also the van I took to pick Scotty up after his sentence. I got some sentimental value in it, but you know. You guys are the Avengers. We gotta stick together.”

“I’m not the Avengers,” Darcy insists, but plops a few of his marshmallows into her cup, watching them dissolve in the heat. “But we normal kids gotta stick together in the midst of all this crazy, too.”

His smile could power the whole base, if he wanted. He presses the rest of the marshmallows into her hand. “If you lived on the West Coast and if the world wasn’t, like, split in half, I’d take you to the city to hang with me and Scotty and the boys. We could show you the wharf, and Golden State Park, and my boy Mauricio’s pizza parlor, Pie Guys, they’ve got the  _ best _ thick-crust sausage special with the creamy garlic sauce - ”

“When all this is over, I  _ promise  _ to make a trip to San Francisco, Luis. I’ll bring my fiancé with me and everything.”

If it’s even possible, his smile grows brighter. “Oh, shit! I didn’t know you were engaged. Let me see.” He looks down for her left hand, and she lets him gingerly grab her fingers. “Blue...September, right? You’re a Virgo?”

“Guilty.”

“I’m a Pisces. Scotty’s an Aries, and he thinks it doesn’t really mean anything, but sometimes it makes sense, you know? He can shut me out when he gets in his head, but he’s my boy. I’m excited to get him out. We used to be roommates, before he got with Hope and everything.”

As much as she’d love to sit and learn the dynamics of Luis and Scott, and who the hell Hope is, she’s almost thankful for Steve’s arrival, but the roll of his sleeves up to his elbows and the authoritative way his hands prop themselves on his hips makes her pull her hand from Luis and want to hide it behind her back.

“Hey,” he says with a congenial smile. “You guys holding up okay out here?”

“Yeah,” she tells him, her voice a beat too high. She clears her throat, telling herself that it’s the tiredness making her go funny. “Pretty much almost all set for extraction. Which I’ve always wanted to say, because it sounds very science fiction-y.”

He laughs lightly, and folds his arms over his chest, drawing her eyes down to the starched white of his shirt, the cling of it to his torso. “How does it feel?”

“We’re going to get a person out of  _ that _ .” She nods to the van, one fingernail scratching anxiously at the handle of her mug. “Feels super science fiction-y.”

“Pepper sent me to remind you all of the impact you’re having on humanity, but I wanted to get some air. Maybe...check in, make sure you’re gettin’ something to eat, make sure you’re not fallin’ asleep. You...okay?” She offers him a half smile before his eyes drift to Luis, who’s practically bouncing from foot to foot. “Luis Esparza, right? Good to meet you.”

“You, too, Mr. Captain...sir. Scotty said you were really nice and you are. Really nice. And very handsome, if you don’t mind me saying, not that I think about you like that, but you’re…” He inhales deeply, grinning still. The next words come out in a reverent whisper. “ _ Captain America _ .”

To his credit, Steve tries not to look too uncomfortable. “You can call me Steve, too. It’s...faster than ‘Captain America’ every time.”

Luis nods quickly, almost vibrating with excitement. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Steve. Well, uh, Captain Steve, if there’s anything I can do to help, what with my van being, like, an integral part of your world-saving investigation and things, you can let me know, and I’ll be around.”

Before Steve has a chance to answer, Stark lifts his mask again. “Stooges. If you’re gonna sit there and flirt, you wanna grab a room? We’ve got a lot of sensitive equipment around here and not a lot of time to get Atom Ant out of the time vortex.”

Darcy rolls her eyes, but Steve ducks his head bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I should go rally the troops.”

“I’ll come with you.” Luis says it quickly, not that he does much else slowly. “And, uh, I promise I’m not flirting, I would never want to get between people gonna get married - ”

“No!” Darcy and Steve say at the same time, too, too fast. “No, we’re not - not like that,” Darcy finishes, going white-hot in the cheeks. “I - my fiance got, uh...dusted. That’s why I’m here. Trying to do my due diligence and everything.”

“Shit. I’m sorry. Scotty and me, our friends Dave and Kurt went the same way. We worked together, and, like…” Luis purses his lips. “...poof, you know? So...that’s why I’m here. Like, maybe if we save Scotty, we save the world. Right?”

It’s not at all something she can promise. But she smiles encouragingly anyway. “Maybe we save the world.”

Before Darcy dips her head down and insists that she should probably get back to work, she pretends not to see the sparkle in Steve’s eye when he looks at her. She pretends that it doesn’t send a wave of shivers from her throat all the way down into her stomach.

* * *

“You’re in trouble, Rogers,” Nat sighs, taking the augmented weapon from Rocket and passing it to Nebula, who lifts it to inspect the components beneath. Rocket spares them a sidelong glance, and even through his small black eyes Steve can sense his severe judgment.

“Yeah. I know. I’m a goddamn mess.”

“ _ Language _ .” She’s teasing, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. And he already feels damned useless, with everyone else face deep in their science and their space and their magic, and he with nothing more to do with his excess of energy other than bounce around trying to raise morale. “We’ve only got...fifteen minutes until A-Day. So either you’re going to figure out your feelings now, or forever hold your peace.”

Before he has the chance to reply, Nebula turns sharply toward them, the gun propped up in her hand. “What feelings?”

“He’s in love with Lewis,” Rocket says without looking up. At Steve’s baffled sputtering in a weak attempt to contradict him, Rocket rolls his eyes, taking his paws off the device in front of him. “Don’t bother denyin’ it, you’re worse at lying than Quill.”

“There ain’t no shame in it.” Surprising everyone, Kraglin speaks up from his place at the back of the lab, but the moment eyes are on him, he turns a little pink and sheepish once more. “I mean...it’s hard not to feel that way spending so much time with someone.”

Steve follows Kraglin’s gaze to Nebula, clenching the gun probably tighter than she needs to. She’s the only one not meeting Kraglin’s eyes, and the color in her cheeks begins to darken as well. Suddenly Steve feels as if he’s intruding on something much larger than his issues.

“I guess we’re solving everybody’s romantic tension today,” Nat mutters, a thin smile rising to her lips as she looks back to the haphazard pile of weapon components in front of her and Rocket. “Pass the - what were you calling it? Ion cannon?”

“Careful with that, Red. It’s serious shit.” He clicks shut what Steve can only assume is an outer space buttplate onto an outer space gun, and if he didn’t already feel like he has one foot in his element and one foot completely out, he does now. “Anyway, don’t sweat it about Lewis. You ain’t her cup of yaro juice anyhow.”

“Rocket.”

“What? When we fix the universe, she’ll have that pasty skinny thing back, the one from the pictures on her iPod.”

“Ian,” Steve corrects, feeling his stomach drop to his toes. “Her fiance’s name is Ian.”

“That’s a lot of attachment for somebody who tries to squish his feelings as much as you do, there, Captain.”

“I  _ don’t _ try to squish my - ”

Rocket heaves a sigh, seeming to have run out of patience. “Look, blondie, way I see it, you got two options. Give up the whole thing and accept that she ain’t gonna be with you when the dust clears. Or, you tell her the truth now, stop dodging around your cryin’ and man-pain, and see if she wants you back. And it ain’t likely she will, but…” He shakes his little head, scratching at a spot at the back of his neck. “...we all got a lot of regrets here. If you got something to say, best to say it while you can.”

The door to the lot outside them scrapes open, Luis standing in between them and the fate of the future. “Uh, guys? It’s happening. We’re getting Scotty out.”

Natasha, Rocket, and Nebula drop the weapons at that, and have flooded out the door before Steve can even process what it means. He walks out with Kraglin, who pats him on the shoulder before they cross the threshold, a very serious and very apprehensive look on his face.

“You love her?” Steve asks, just low enough that he hopes it’ll fly just under Nebula’s radar. Kraglin’s face turns a soft pink.

“I do. I don’t suspect her to want me back or nothin’, but...I do.”

Something in Steve’s chest twists painfully, and almost like a reflex, his eyes wander to Darcy’s figure in the not-so-distant distance, her gaze aimed at the beat up old van in front of her. The contraption inside of it has started to glow, and seemingly out of nowhere, a wind picks up that swirls only around the car. Tony is in full Iron Man gear, and it almost makes Steve feel naked without some semblance of his own suit.

It’s not until he lingers toward the back of the small semicircle forming around their setup that he realizes Clint is standing beside him, Nathaniel curled close to his side with his head on Clint’s shoulder. Clint meets Steve’s eyes, pasting on what’s likely supposed to be a smile, but comes off more like a grimace. He reaches out to shake Steve’s hand.

“Hey,” they each say, not needing to say much more. Steve would tell him that he’s sorry - but he knows that’ll never be enough.

The strain has taken a clear toll on Clint. There are heavy bags under his eyes, his hair has been shaven close on the sides, and rather than donning anything resembling his old Hawkeye uniform, he’s dressed in a baggy gray jacket and sweatpants. A musky but not unclean scent wafts off him, like he’s been sleeping outdoors, if he’s been sleeping at all.

“Think they’re getting Lang out?” Clint asks, like this is the normal kind of conversation they’d have around the base. Like he’s asking if there’s any creamer left in the fridge at the mess hall.

“Sure hope so.” Bruce looks more sure of himself than Steve has seen him in a long while, and he suspects it has something to do with the way that Jane reaches over to squeeze his hand when she thinks no one’s looking. “I trust them.”

“The guy who tried putting serial numbers on us...the guy who disappeared on us, leavin’ Nat high and dry for a few years...and a couple scientists who know Thor but we’d never met?” Clint draws in a deep inhale, then forces out a deep exhale. “Sorry. Maybe my family dying in the next room made me a cynic.”

Steve knows better than to do more than fold his arms over his chest. “Nat trusts them. I trust them. Tony...he’s trying to put things right.”

Clint shrugs. “If that’s what gets him to sleep at night.”

They watch the team in silence for the next few minutes, all the components of this thing falling eventually into place as Darcy calls times. She turns around somewhere near the fifty-five second mark, and makes brief eye contact with him.

He smiles. She smiles back.

Bruce and Jane look to each other, and then to Tony. With a wordless confirmation, the clock runs down to zero, and Bruce pushes down on a plunger on the control panel.

With sounds that imitate thunder and whooshing and booming like Steve has never heard before, the machine in the back of the van glows bright purple, blue, green, yellow, flashes so white he has to shield his eyes, and then darkens.

When things are quiet, the Ant-Man suit crouches on all fours behind the vehicle, its head bowed to the ground. Luis rushes forward, Nat catching him by the shoulder.

The suit lifts its head, and with another small whoosh, the helmet detracts to reveal Scott Lang, gasping for air.

Nat lets Luis go, and he cries out,  _ Scotty _ , grabbing his friend tight and holding him close. After a moment, Scott flings his arms around Luis, the men on their knees sobbing into each other’s embrace. Steve feels something in his throat prickle, and covers his mouth with his hand to stifle the cough.

The thought invades his head more quickly than he can push it out:  _ this is us. Me and Buck. This should be us. _

It’s a less attractive thought when Scott pushes out of Luis’s grasp to spill his guts on the pavement; Bruce steps apprehensively forward with a water bottle in his cautious outstretched hand. “Here,” Steve hears him say, “you okay?”

With one hand, Scott takes the water. The other he opens, a small green stone pulsing emerald in his palm.

“I got it,” Scott pants, eyes wild with disbelief, confusion. “I got the Time Stone."


	10. ||ten||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein we talk a lot about the Infinity Stones and the responsibilities that come with them, Steve becomes a Captain again, and Darcy expresses some thoughts on existence with someone she wouldn't have expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot going on here. I've been working on this chapter since I posted the last one. 7700 words later, here we are. We'll get to some acknowledgment of feelings/more than 2 consecutive minutes of handholding soon, I promise. Thanks for tagging along, if you have been ❤️

_ This probably won’t happen. _ _   
_ _ But maybe it will. _ _   
_ _ If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it? _ _   
_ _ \- “Singapore” - Mary Oliver _

Somewhere in the bustle of Scott passing out face first into the asphalt, being carted to the lab to have his vitals checked, and having an IV plugged into his forearm, Darcy finds herself charged with caring for the Time Stone, the tiny green rock much lighter than the weight of its supposed responsibility. Jane fumbles for a container, one hand on Darcy’s elbow, and shakes when she offers it up, her face pale white and her lower lip trembling. She smiles, though, a thin laugh escaping her lips that tells Darcy, without words, _ God, I can’t believe we did this _.

“Here,” Darcy whispers, eyes darting reflexively toward Steve, before she shoves the stone into the little plastic box in Jane’s hand. “Is he - he’s going to be okay, right?”

“Nobody’s ever been stuck in the space-time continuum the way he has.” Jane chews on her lip, the nervous habit that’s made Darcy carry a spare tube of Chapstick on her since the days of her internship. “What he knows about moving through time could give us...information we need to fix everything.”

“Is that the strategy? We go back in time to try and fix things?”

“More like _ they _ go back in time to fix things.” Jane nods at the smattering of Avengers gathered around Scott in the lab, Thor with one arm around Clint Barton and the other around Natasha.

If the Avengers, the real Avengers, are the ones using the Time Stone and Scott’s knowledge of the Quantum Realm to go back in time, there’s a huge chance that the Darcy she was before all this, the Darcy in London who lies languidly in her bed with Ian on Sundays and manages the front desk for Therese’s bakery, will forget everything that’s happened here. She’ll forget the late night movies and dance parties with Nat, the arguments over 80s music with Rocket, the time spent laughing and crying and drinking way too much coffee with Jane and Kelsey.

And, as fucked as it was to have to even go home in these circumstances, she’ll forget the road trip with Steve, and the fact that her mother still makes her spaghetti and meatballs when she’s sad. She fingers her phone in her pocket, smiling at the memory of Steve rolling his eyes when she set his ringtone on it.

A poisonous wave of guilt roils in her stomach when she realizes that the thing she’d miss most about this world, this timeline, is the friend she’s found in Steve, the man she’d learned about in history books but never realized had a real heart of gold, a kind smile, and the compulsive need to care for others, no matter the cost.

Wanting a man she’s known for a few weeks while missing the man she’s had for what feels like most of her life...even though sometimes it feels like she’s known Steve all her life.

But there’s no question she’d...have to give up this strange and awful longing for the good of the world. The good of the universe.

Her father. Her niece. Her sister-in-law.

And her fiance.

“What happens to us, then?” Kelsey asks, looking unsure of what to do with the plate of cranberry scones she’s got in a white-knuckled grasp. “We go back to our ignorant and blissful lives before all of this? Those of us who made it, do we remember this world? Or do we have to pretend not to know what it’s like missing the people who are suddenly back with us?” Her cheeks darken, and it almost looks like she’s holding back tears. “Clint gets his boy back? Thor gets his people? How far back do we go, then? Do we save the people lost in the first Attack on New York? Sokovia? Go back to when the purple bastard’s a child, kill him before he can do any damage?”

“Maybe we don’t even _ go _ back,” Jane suggests with a halfhearted shrug. “Maybe...I don’t know, maybe there’s something we can do without fucking up time as monumentally. Maybe...if Scott brought us the Time Stone, this means the other ones are...somewhere, too. They could hold the key to working at all…” She waves her hand abstractly in front of her, frowning. “...this.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure.” Darcy folds her arms over her front, so that the pain in her chest might contain itself a little more compactly. “We’re most likely not going to be on the deciding committee for what to do with...that little guy.” She nods at the box in Jane’s hand. She sucks her lower lip under her teeth, eyes flickering back toward the lab. “C’mon. Let’s kick the heroes out of our domain so Scott can get some real rest.”

It almost takes a crowbar to pry Luis away from his best friend, but it melts her frozen little heart a bit to watch him relent, taking Scott’s head in his hands and pressing a kiss to his hair. It reminds Darcy of the way she might tuck Jane in after a long night of work, the way she’d tuck her in tonight - this morning, she thinks, with the hints of pink sunlight tickling the horizon in the distance - if they were doing their regular, non-universe saving lab hours. Instead, she volunteers to stay by Scott’s bedside until he wakes up, to keep an eye on his vitals.

“Not a chance,” Tony counters, frowning at her. “You’re knockin’ on death’s door with those under-eye bags. What you need is a warm bed, Lewis.”

“I’ll stay with her.” When Steve speaks up, Tony almost does a double-take, the lines deepening between his eyebrows. “We can sleep in shifts.”

She knows that he’s doing this for her; she’ll pass out in the first ten minutes when the room gets quiet. But she also knows that being alone with him might make her...weak. 

“So long as you don’t get fresh with me, Rogers.” This elicits a few chuckles, but it feels like most everyone can see her standing her ground, so slowly, the group of Avengers begins to dissipate one-by-one, some of them offering her a gentle pat to the shoulder, Clint’s toddler Nate waving one pudgy hand on his way out. Her heart swells and then aches; it’s the same way Juli said goodbye when she left home.

When the room is almost empty, Darcy pushes her usual stool over by the makeshift hospital bed and leans it against the wall. After thinking on it for a second, she digs through her desk for her notebook. The pages have lain mostly empty since her trip home.

_ Scott Lang _

_ Luis Esparza _

_ Nebula _

_ Kraglin _

_ Clint Barton _

_ Tony Stark _

She doesn’t bother to write the names of the deceased; they’re living painfully in her head instead.

“That’s kind of morbid,” Steve chimes in, and she realizes that he’s sitting on the other side of Scott, his stool directly opposite hers. “Does it help you?”

“No.” Super-eyes must make it annoyingly easy to see every flicker of her penmanship. “But it keeps me busy. Keeps things...in order.”

Steve nods, then falls back into that same charged, heavy silence. Darcy pretends not to watch him fiddling with his hands, pretends she doesn’t want to reach out and squeeze one of them between hers. He says the next quiet words to his lap. “You’re brave, you know. Braver than you think. Coming here, taking care of the lab, volunteering to watch Scott.” His eyes meet hers briefly, and red fills his cheeks. He shakes his head. “Fuckin’...you intimidate the shit out of me, Darcy Lewis.”

“Me?” She laughs solemnly, a ginger smile treading up her lips. “Do you know how it’s been here? Or with you, on my way home? You’re…” A sigh escapes her, and she wishes she could close her eyes, push her palms into them, and rub until she falls asleep. “...you’re impossible to keep up with.”

She can feel him watching her, but there’s this thing in her chest, a pressure, that tells her if she looks up at him, makes eye contact...the thing will have to be spoken into the air. Out in the open. And she won’t be able to take it back.

“Ah, I’ve...never met anybody more, uh, impossible than you.” It comes out a little like a grumble, but there’s a smile somewhere in his voice. He trails away after a moment, and then the smile is gone. “I’m sorry. I, uh...I should know my place.”

That thing in her chest becomes heavy, falling like a stone into her gut. She wants to grab him, tell him to stop, tell him that if he gets too close, he’ll put his finger right on that thing, and she won’t be able to keep it quiet. Won’t be able to push it away. Won’t be able to smother it late at night, when it tries to claw its way into her. “I wonder what it was like to be in the Quantum Realm. How the Time Stone came to him.”

“Can’t tell until we get him awake. It’s funny, he reminded me - he and Luis...of me and Bucky.” In her peripherals, she sees him scrub a hand across his face, fingertips catching on the thick, wiry hair of his beard. In spite of herself, she feels a smile crack over her cheeks. 

“I thought of me and Jane. Will you tell me about you and Bucky?”

He straightens up, arms raising over his head and lifting his shirt up to show a sliver of chiseled stomach. “Well...growin’ up I was sick about eight months of the year, so we spent a lotta time together in the summers. Used to sneak under the bleachers at Dodger stadium to catch a game when we were real young.” His face brightens a little with the faraway memory. “He’d stand me on his shoulders and make me tell him the plays.”

“Hmm,” she smiles, propping up her chin in her hand. “So if the Avenging and the ice dancing don’t work out, you could even take up sports announcing.”

“I’m oddly hireable.” He chuckles, scraping at the hair on the back of his neck. “But, uh, if he didn’t like the score, he’d tell me I was doin’ it wrong. I told him if he wanted to break my back and call the plays himself he could. 

“When we got a little older, there was this Italian family he lived next to, the Spirellis? In the spring, Bucky mowed lawns for them, and they had me teach their boy Gianni English. Made just enough cash to buy standin’ room tickets. Had to drag Gianni along sometimes, but he was a good kid. Didn’t know shit about baseball.”

She smiles fondly, thinking of Charlie’s Little League games, thinking of playing in the dirt while he ran the bases and stealing the snacks from his batbag after their little team meetings. He and Dad took her to her first Phillies game, and bought her the quintessential peanuts and Cracker Jacks before the first pitch. “Did he at least buy you some peanuts and Cracker Jacks?”

He laughs again, and when she finally chances a look up at him, he’s got his eyes on Scott, a tender and nostalgic pull on his lips. “Honestly? I don’t remember. I think we spent most of the games we went to hecklin’ the Giants.” He opens his mouth to keep going, but Darcy puts up a hand; a line has formed between Scott’s brows and he makes a noise that sounds like a pained groan.

“Scott? Can you hear me?” He squirms a little, the cords in his neck straining and his face contorting, but after a moment, his eyes blink blearily open.

“Captain America heckled the Giants,” he chokes out, one hand weakly lifting to scratch at his neck, where the suit hugs him close. “Shit.”

Steve fumbles out of his chair, rising to stand at Scott’s side, one hand over his arm to keep him from moving the IV out of place. “Hey - you’re okay. I won’t say another thing about it.” He plasters on a smile of encouragement; it goes all the way up to his eyes, and Darcy feels her chest pull tight again. “How you feeling? You, uh, scared us pretty good.”

“I’m - Christ, I…” He inhales deeply, eyes searching wildly around him. “There was someone in the Quantum Realm with me. A woman...she said she was the Ancient One. A bald lady, in monk clothes? Said she knew a Doctor Strange, that Stark would know who she meant.” He rubs hard at his eyes, as if to shake the oddity from his vision. Darcy takes the water bottle that Bruce had given him earlier and places it at his side - he can drink when he’s ready. “She told me about - ”

She wants to tell him to slow down, to wait until the real Avengers can come and process his story, that she’s not the person in charge here. She’s not important enough to - it feels crazy to even think it - to take his statement. But Steve meets her eyes over the bed, and his expression tells her that there’s no better place for her to be right now. 

She has to swallow that heavy something in her throat down again.

“ - about the Infinity Stones. Six...gems. That made up all of the universe. She told me that - that they came together once, and then spread out across all of space and time, because everything in the universe has a place.” He inhales deeply, drinks from his water, and then gasps when it leaves his lips again. “And now - they came together again. She told me about him, the Mad Titan.”

He’s flexing his fingers at his sides, as if he forgot they were there at the ends of his hands, and lifts them in front of his face, blinking hard. Scott’s face goes pale, and Darcy, worrying he might pass out again, fumbles for something to prop under his feet. Jane’s second astro-book (which, while it might be beside the point, earned an introduction from Neil deGrasse Fucking Tyson) seems to do the trick.

“She said that - now, with the things he did, the Stones are looking for their place again. In the universe. She was a…” He looks like he can barely believe the words that are coming out of his mouth. “...she said she was one of the supreme sorcerers. The Time Stone needed her to get to me...to get to Thor.”

“Thor?” Steve wonders, finally, his brows furrowing as he folds his arms over his chest; Darcy realizes this is his default defense position, that when he’s unsure he puts up a physical wall between himself and the uncertain, the unbelievable. “Did she say why it has to go to Thor?”

Scott shakes his head, and in one long pull, finishes the rest of his water bottle. “No. She said something about...not everything can be fixed in one go-around - ‘no puzzle is pieced together by one hand.’ To get things back on track, the way they’re supposed to be - Thor needs to use the Time Stone.” He turns his eyes to Darcy then, looking like a combination of a madman and a mystic, and nearly stops her heart with his next words: 

“And you need to use the Soul Stone.”

She feels the stool hit her thighs first, before she falls on her butt against the cold wood. An Infinity Stone? For _ her _ to use? “Why me?”

“She didn’t tell me. She told me the woman with the dark hair - Darcy - I’d know you when I saw you. Just...you’re meant to use the Soul Stone. I don’t know how you get it, or where, but...it has to be you.” The pale tint in his face begins to turn gray, and Darcy frowns up at Steve.

“Go get something sugary from the kitchen - anything,” she barks, and almost by the time that the words have left her mouth, he’s out the door. “Scott? You’re okay. Did the woman - the...Ancient One? Did she tell you anything else?”

He shakes his head, looking incredulously up at her; she presses her wrist to his forehead - he’s clammy and cool to the touch, and then, slowly, his eyes begin to fall closed again. Darcy pats him on the cheek, gently as not to hurt him, but hard enough to keep him awake.

“Hey. You can sleep in a little bit, but you’ve gotta have something in you first, bud. Steve’s getting you something to eat.” He blinks sluggishly, but his head moves up and down a fraction of an inch. She can work with that. “Dude, Luis is so happy to have you back. He’s gonna tell everybody the first thing you said when you woke up was that Steve was shitting on the Giants.”

“Supposed to take Cassie...Battle of the Bay this summer.” A thin smile lifts his lips, but his eyes have passed her, looking into the distance over her shoulder. “We had bleacher seats. Her favorite.”

“We’ll call Cassie after you’ve had some rest. Promise.” Steve returns with a Dixie cup in one hand and one of Kelsey’s sweets of the day in the other. Scott takes the scone first and gnaws at it, swallowing hard. “Luis said she’s your baby girl. How old is she?”

“She’s ten,” he answers, after an orange gulp from the cup. Tears well in his eyes, but he lets loose a deep exhale, his head falling back to hit the pillow. “She’s...should be with her mom and Paxton - Jim, her stepdad.”

“They’re all back in San Francisco?” Steve asks.

“Yeah. Hope and Hank and Janet - ” He swallows a breath, blinks hard at Darcy, as if he expects her to have the answers that he needs. “They were with me before I went into the Quantum Realm.”

Her heart sinks, and she feels a spike of bile at the back of her throat. “We’re going to get them back. Hope and Hank and Janet…” She rests a hand on top of his, watches him finish the scone and drain his cup. The color has returned to his cheeks, but he seems to fade into his pillow, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

It’s a promise they all know she might not be able to keep.

She and Steve watch his breathing slow, watch his chest rise and fall peacefully into a steady rhythm. At last, he can rest.

Darcy watches the even bleep of the heart monitor, the little green line spiking symmetry with the ebb and flow of Scott’s pulse. It’s another long moment before either of them speak again.

“I think he’ll be okay.” She takes her hand off his, places it in her lap, and doesn’t let herself make eye contact with Steve again. “Thank you. For getting him somethin’ to eat.”

“Of course.” He pauses. She can hear him scratching the back of his neck, like he tends to do when he’s nervous. “Do you...do you want to get some sleep? I can handle the next few hours. I’ll call Bruce or Thor or someone if I get tired.”

“No, you won’t.” She smiles, and meets his eyes. “But okay. You’ll let me know about any more cosmic responsibilities bestowed on me by ancient sorcerers?”

He lifts his cell phone and wiggles it at her. “I’ve got your number.”

On her way out of the room, she wants to reach out, maybe squeeze his shoulder, maybe pull him into her arms and not let go.

She forces herself to brush past him, only letting the shock and confusion spill down her cheeks after the door shuts behind her.

Before she can fall asleep, Darcy rips out the marked-up pages in her notebook and begins again, this time with the heading: _ People We’re Going to Save _.

* * *

Steve watches Scott sleep through the morning, until Bruce appears in the doorway with slightly lighter circles under his eyes than the six or so hours before. On his way back to the L building, so he can find something to eat before he heads to bed, he spots Jane sneaking from her dorm toward the lab. He can’t help but smile; it’s been nice seeing Bruce’s spirits lifted a little when he spends time with her.

Tony, Nat, Rhodey, and Thor are waiting for him in the kitchen, not much looking like they’ve gotten any sleep either. Pepper is strewn over the couch in the living room, snoring quietly into one of the cushions. Thor has commandeered the coffee pot, and pours Steve a mug without asking.

“How’s the Incredible Shrinking Man?” Tony says, the humor in his voice worn down by exhaustion.

The words come out in a blur between his lips, but he tells them everything: the Quantum Realm, the Ancient One, the Time and Soul Stones, Cassie, the Giants. Thor frowns at his news about the Time Stone, bringing a confused hand to pass wearily over his face.

“I don’t know why you,” Steve says, before Thor can ask. “I don’t know why Darcy for the Soul Stone, either. It’s...apparently just what the Ancient One said. The supreme sorcerer.”

Tony visibly stiffens; Nat picks up on it, too, steepling her hands in front of her. “Strange called himself the Sorcerer Supreme. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“You trusted him.” The way Natasha says it, it’s not a question. Tony hesitates, but when he answers, he looks her in the eye:

“Yeah.” He draws in a deep breath, and puts on that faraway gaze again. “Do we trust this? Strange saved my life, how do we know this Ancient One is telling the truth? What kind of skin does she have in the game?”

“She gave Scott the Time Stone. Willingly. Like Strange gave up the Time Stone for you.”

The thought seems to sober Tony, and he stares emotionlessly into his coffee then, his mind made up. “The Geek Squad and I are close to getting energy signatures on the rest of the Stones, and Thanos. Could get it done by tomorrow.”

“You need sleep, Tony,” Nat chides, her voice flat. “We all do. We’re not facing this asshole and fixing the universe without at least one night’s rest and some food.”

“We get sleep today,” Steve cuts in. “Sleep today, then regroup tomorrow as a team. Once we have readings on Thanos and the rest of the Stones, we can figure out how we’re going to handle this. Together.”

“I don’t need figuring out.” Thor’s outburst is both gruff and abrupt, and while there’s little malice to it, a pit drops in Steve’s stomach. “I know why I am meant to use the Time Stone. I ask for a ship, the company of Rocket, and your trust.”

“Where’re you going?” Rhodey summons the gumption to ask, leaning into his coffee.

“Asgard. To save Heimdall, my brother, and the rest of our people.”

A small cacophony ensues: Steve insisting that they’re a team, that they have to work together to solve their problems; Tony slamming his fist on the table, asking him where this unity was in 2016, when they needed him; Thor instituting his ‘God of Thunder’ status, and Rhodey scoffing at it; Natasha trying to keep the peace, as usual. No one really gets a word in edgewise until Pepper lifts herself off the couch and shouts, “_ Hey! _”

Steve thanks his lucky stars that he’s never seen her truly pissed off until now.

“You know better than to believe a pissing match solves anything,” she says venomously, her eyes trained mostly on Tony. “We are tense. All of us, and it’s because of Thanos, and not sleeping, and working nonstop since we all got here. The gods and superheroes and laymen alike.” To Steve’s surprise, Thor withers a little under her gaze. “Nobody is leaving this base or going back to work without getting at least four hours’ rest, and that’s non-negotiable.

“Thor, you can’t take Rocket.” He opens his mouth to protest, but Pepper shakes her head, clearly not finished yet. “We need him here to help track the Stones and Thanos. What about Nebula?”

“No,” Natasha interrupts, the steel of the Black Widow behind her voice. “If she even sniffs Thanos in the past, she’s going to go rogue, and she’s going to try to kill him then and there.” She pauses, folding her arms in front of her chest. “I know what it’s like, to be made by a monster.” When she looks up at Thor, there’s a palpable understanding in the air. “You take Kraglin with you. He’s a good pilot and a good man. And Pepper is right. Nobody leaves or does work for at least the next four hours. I’ll page Carol to see when she can get here. See how she can help.”

Steve glances to Thor, offering a hand. “Can we compromise?”

Thor takes it with some reluctance, but grips it warmly after a moment. “Four hours. And we shall have allies in the Asgardians.”

“In the meantime, folks,” Nat says, rising from her seat, “I’m gonna get to bed. Suggest you all do the same.”

Steve makes to follow her out, but, surprising him yet again, Tony catches him by the elbow. For once, with a serious expression on his face. “Hey. No, uh, hard feelings back there? Sorry. I got kinda caught up with - ”

He never thought he’d see the day that Tony Stark openly apologize. “No hard feelings. We’re all happy to have you home, Tony.”

“Feeling’s mutual. Be better when we get this bullshit sorted.” Tony clears his throat, then reaches back to seek Pepper’s hand in his. “Talk to you in a couple hours, Cap.”

With Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey passing by on his side, Steve speeds his pace to reach Natasha. She looks like she’s waited for him to fall in step beside her. “How you holding up?”

“I could probably sleep through the week. You?”

She sighs. “Same.” 

When she pinches the bridge of her nose, he can almost see the gears turning rustily in her head: it’s almost the same song and dance, but in a new pattern every time. Aliens, homicidal egomaniacs, magic and mystery, loss. He wonders how many times these patterns can be arranged in the universe, how many times fate would like to fuck with them. How many more people it would like to pluck from the Earth at random far before their time.

“Scott really said all that? About...an Ancient One? Or...whatever it was?”

He shrugs. “If my immediate response to it is ‘stranger things have happened’...I trust him. I guess I’m worried. About how it’s supposed to unfold.”

She gives him a meaningful look. “The Soul Stone?” He doesn’t need to answer. “In a couple hours, we should consult with Nebula a little about the Stones. Tony said she used to track them down with Thanos. If there’s anybody who knows the kind of strategies he’d use, it’d be her.”

“Right.” The stress of the night must be taking its toll; he can feel the exhaustion building up behind his eyes. “Christ...think I’m retiring after this. Leave saving the world to the next generation.”

Nat chuckles a little, and nudges him with her elbow. “Like you’d ever be one to run from a fight.” A mischievous look takes over her face then, with the last of the energy he’s sure either of them have. “Except the fight with your _ emotions _ you’ve had going for the last couple weeks.”

He waves her off before he opens the door to the dormitory building. “It’ll pass. Once the rush of apocalyptic doom is over.”

“Sure,” she says, not trying to hide how unconvinced she is. Nat’s door faces his, one room down from Darcy’s. He tries not to think about it. “Sleep tight, Steve.”

“Sleep tight, Nat.”

* * *

It’s light outside when Steve wakes up, the chiming of his phone alarm blaring loud beside his ear. He wishes that he could get a moment of dreamless sleep, but every time he closes his eyes, dark hair and a soft, pink-lipped smile fill his vision. He scrubs his eyes before pushing off the bed, and trudging to the shower to clean up. Halfway through rinsing the soap off his chest, FRIDAY comes over the intercom and nearly gives him a heart attack:

_ “Everyone on base, please report to Building L for mission brief.” _

Then, softly enough that he’s sure it’s meant only for him: “_ Ready to give assignments again, Captain? _”

He turns the faucet off and reaches for a towel to dry his eyes first. “Hopefully, this’ll be one of the last times, FRIDAY.”

“_ Wishful thinking, sir. _”

When he gets to the meeting room, Clint is walking in beside him. Nate looks up at Steve through big, curious brown eyes, and waves. He waves back.

“Steven. Clint.” Thor rises from his seat on the sofa, the expression on his face a mite bit humbler after Pepper’s admonishment. “Please,” he says, offering the spot to Clint and his boy. “Is this Nathaniel? What a strapping young man.”

“Thor,” Nate giggles, peeking out from behind his father’s leg. Clint sighs, but smiles and ruffles the kid’s hair anyhow.

“You’re his favorite Avenger. Just my luck, huh?”

Thor offers the kid a hand, and when Nate takes it, lifts him up above his head. “A wise choice from a mighty young warrior. I’m certain we can expect wondrous things from you.”

Clint leans back into the sofa, watching with jaded eyes as Thor spins his son through the air, Nate giggling and covering his face with both small hands. “I haven’t seen him smile this much in weeks.”

“Which one?” Steve chuckles, leaning against the spot where Darcy had first sat when Nat proposed a dance party. It feels like years have passed, but he reminds himself they’ve all only been together on base less than a month.

A solemn voice in the back of his head tells him that real feelings aren’t built so fast.

“Careful, big guy, you’re gonna pull his arms outta their sockets,” she says as she walks in, as if the cogs turning in Steve’s mind have sent out a homing beacon for the woman he shouldn’t, couldn’t love the way she deserves.

Darcy’s eyes meet his briefly, twinkling, and the corners of her mouth turn up in a small smile.

Jane and Bruce follow her in, flanked by Kelsey, who has somehow managed to pull from thin air a platter of treats. Nate seems to freeze midair, trying to wriggle out of Thor’s arms to get a good look at the desserts that have just walked in the door. Clint smirks, bringing Nate back down to Earth to let Kelsey offer him a cookie.

“Don’t take it personal, man, he thinks with his stomach.”

“As does every man I’ve ever met.” Jane smiles, bumping Thor with her elbow. “Nice to catch you in good spirits, Odinson.”

“And you, Dr. Foster.”

Hmm. Bruce hangs back, his face unlined - so things must be okay, with the three of them. That’s reassuring.

As scattered small talk spreads throughout the room, Nat files in with Rocket, Kraglin, and Nebula. Rocket speaks animatedly with his little hands, the expletives quickly shrinking from his vocabulary when he spies Nate. Nate seems to notice Rocket at the same time, his eyes going wide as saucers.

“You’ve made a friend,” Nebula deadpans, a thin smirk on her lips.

“Shut up,” Rocket grumbles, but lets the kid clumsily pet his ears anyway.

Right when the sight of the unlikely pair threatens to make his heart swell to twice its size, a weight falls into the seat beside him, and Steve can’t stop the stutter in his chest at Darcy’s thigh brushing against his. She aims a tender smile at him, and the rest of the room blurs away.

“Hey.”

Her voice comes out small, wondering. He swallows down his doubt, and smiles back.

“Hey.” The little patch of warmth where she hasn’t bothered to move her leg away from him nearly sets his insides on fire. “Get any sleep?”

“I did my best.” She goes quiet for a moment, tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear. “I, uh...I feel like I kind of shut you out...this morning. And I wanted to say I’m sorry for that.”

“No,” he frowns, wishing that he could reach down and squeeze the hand she’s wringing over her lap. And then he realizes it’s the one with the engagement ring on it. “No, you don’t have to be sorry. I was outta line.”

“Steve.” The word comes out so softly he almost forgets that it’s his own name. “You weren’t.” She chews her lip, blinks up slow at him. “This is just a lot.” Her throat bobs, and he recognizes tears collecting at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

Against his better judgment, he turns his right hand palm-up on the outside of his leg. “I know. I know.”

She takes it with her right hand, finally leaning into his shoulder. “I’m really scared, Steve. I just...I don’t get why I have to...you know?”

The Soul Stone. The Ancient One’s prophecy, for the lack of a better word.

“Whatever happens, Darcy, we’re with you. I promise, okay? A hundred percent of the way.”

Her fingers are small and soft between his, the nails naked of polish but just long enough to scrape gently at his flesh when she squeezes down. Her thumb moves ceaselessly in delicate circles over his skin. Something in Steve’s stomach constricts, yearning for her.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and lifts her eyes to meet his for a fraction of a second - 

Before Tony Stark and Pepper Potts stride through the door with an air of finality.

Darcy lets go first, every inch of her that had been touching him gone. He wonders if this is what having a ghost-limb feels like; like he’s missing something that was there the whole time.

“Folks,” Tony announces, clapping his hands together, and at last the cacophony dies down. His gaze roves across his small audience, landing finally on Steve. “We getting this started?”

Steve feels himself stand up, feels his words ripple out of him on their own accord. “Luis with Scott in the lab?” Tony nods. He draws in one deep breath, and looks out on the last of the Avengers. 

“Everyone. You’ve done so much these last few weeks with us, and we and the rest of the world can’t begin to thank you enough. 

“Thanos has cost us more than our lives. He’s cost us our safety, our loved ones, and the sense of peace that we wish we could have, not knowing whether someone can stroll in and play god whenever they like. He has killed, ruined, and stolen from the whole damn universe. He got away with it for too damn long.” He remembers Nate, offering an apologetic smile. “Sorry, bud.

“Scott Lang has brought us the Time Stone, and some information on the rest of the Infinity Stones. After his time in the Quantum Realm, he met someone called the Ancient One - someone that Dr. Strange knew and trusted. He learned that after the Infinity Stones had been used, they’d been scattered back over the universe. It’s up to us to find them, and make sure Thanos doesn’t.”

He pauses, glancing over to Thor. “Scott told us that Thor was meant to use the Time Stone. We’ve decided that Thor will gather a team to rescue the Asgardians that Thanos killed before the Snap. He’ll be taking Kraglin - ” Kraglin nods, flashing a silver-toothed smile at Thor. “And leaving as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Cap’n. And Cap’n.”

“We will be requiring many of you who work in the science department to stay on base, to help us finish the tracking devices you’re working on. We need to track down the rest of those Stones as fast as we can. Nebula.”

She lifts her head, full black eyes trained laser-like on him. Focused so hard it nearly shakes him. “We’d really appreciate your help working on how to approach Thanos on a strategic level. You know the most about his movements. The way that he searched for the Stones. Right now, our next greatest concern, after saving the Asgardians and tracking down Thanos, is finding the Soul Stone.”

“I know where to go,” she answers, her voice firm and steady. She sounds more sure of herself than even he does.

“Good. As for the rest of us, we need to be a support team. Do what rescue needs, do what science needs. Our strategic team will meet throughout the day, until we have a secure reading on where Thanos and the rest of the Stones are.”

He inhales one last time, his gaze falling absently back to Nate. People worth saving.

“We’re in it together this time. All of us. For us. For the people we lost, the people on the other side of the universe, the people right next to you. That being said, we can’t do this if we’re all on our last legs. Eat when you need to. Sleep when you need to. Rest, talk, go for a walk, if that’s what you need. Because at the end of the day, we are getting our people back.”

Natasha is the first to get her feet under her. The look on her face is nothing short of fierce determination. “Let’s do this.”

The rest of the team slowly rises, everyone’s expressions, and the sentiments behind them, identical.

The faint feeling of Darcy’s hand closes around his wrist, and she makes her way to her feet as well. He can feel the cold metal of her ring pressing hard and tight into his skin, like a promise he knows better than to break.

“Let’s do this,” her whisper echoes.

* * *

Darcy watches Natasha volunteer to join Thor and Kraglin on the ship at the helipad, and lets the other woman pull her close and squeeze her tight. “Be safe. We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Yeah,” Darcy tells her, not knowing what to say. “Be careful?”

“It’s space, I’ll be fine.” The bravado in her voice falters for a moment, and she lifts a hand to the small cluster of scientists making their way back toward the lab. “You take care of them, okay? And take care of you.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

But Thor won’t leave without saying goodbye - and his hugs are bonecrushing, to say the least.

“The last thing that Loki said to me was that the sun would shine on us another day.” He pinches her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and the fatherly gesture sends pangs down to her stomach. “I believe that day is today, Lady Darcy.”

“I bet you’re right, big guy. We’ll have all the coffee and PopTarts when you get back, yeah?”

This brings the mightiest smile to his face. “That we shall.”

She doesn’t know Kraglin very well, not nearly well enough to hug one another in their sappy goodbyes, but he still lifts his hand in farewell, his eyes holding a kind innocence that Darcy would recognize anywhere. She waves back.

“Don’t miss ‘em too much, Lewis,” Rocket teases, straightening his vest and combing back the fur at the top of his head. “We got work to do. Remember?”

“Alright, boss. I’ll get the tunes prepared.”

“Boss,” he repeats, a mischievous smile etched across his face. “I like the sound of that.”

While Jane and Bruce hunch over their molecular stuff, and Tony and Rocket huddle around their mechanical stuff, and Kelsey fusses over Luis fussing over Scott, Darcy manages the “Get Shit Done” playlist she’s been perfecting since college.

And tries not to think about what the hell dealing with the Soul Stone means.

“You’re Darcy Lewis.” The flat voice behind her rings out like plucking a note from metallic cords. Nebula is watching her through narrowed black eyes, studying her. “The scientist’s assistant.”

“Yeah.” She wills her voice into submission, into steadiness. “And you’re Nebula. The...not-Earthling.”

“We don’t call you Earthlings. We call you Terrans.” Nebula stalks closer, her feet slinking forward with a catlike smoothness that treads toward Uncanny Valley.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the strategy committee?”

“I needed air.” She’s close enough to touch now, her expression unreadable. Darcy has heard the late night talk that she’s positive Nat never meant for her to hear: _ alien, assassin, daughter of Thanos, dangerous _.

But what the hell does she have to lose now?

“Do you want one of Kelsey’s apple cakes?”

The question seems to take her aback, her gaze darting to the lab table Darcy’s pointing at where the pile of cakes sits innocuously, waiting to be eaten. Her metal hand hesitates on its way to the one on top, and she lets it sit in her palm, observing, before she lifts it to her nose, and then her mouth.

“It’s good,” she says from one corner of her lips, the opposite cheek a pouch for the bite she’d taken. Before she swallows, she takes her time tasting it, rolling it through her mouth slowly, then gulps. “I want another.”

“Finish the one you’ve got first,” Darcy says, and shudders at how similar she sounds to her mother. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Nebula takes her time with her second bite, too, this time surveying Darcy while she chews, and waits to answer after she swallows. “I heard you were to use the Soul Stone.”

Her gut quivers with anxiety yet again. “That’s what I heard, too.”

“My father - Thanos,” she corrects, venom creasing her brow, “he used my sister to get it.”

There’s something very past tense about that sentence that makes Darcy not even want to ask. “How?”

“I don’t know. He took her to Vormir, but when he returned, she was gone, and he had the Stone. An exchange, of some sort.”

“A sacrifice.” The word sends a chill down Darcy’s throat, straight into her spine. “I have to sacrifice something to use it.”

“I think so.” It’s Darcy that Nebula studies now, her chin raised and her face tight. She doesn’t necessarily soften, but Darcy could swear that something in her expression changes - by a fraction. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you will have to sacrifice.”

Darcy turns her ring around so that the stone presses into her palm, and swallows. “What if, this time, I don’t have to sacrifice anything? Scott said the Stones got scattered the first time, and they're scattered now - maybe they go somewhere where someone doesn’t have to…”

“I don’t know,” Nebula repeats, and breaks the untouched part of her apple cake in half, offering one piece to Darcy. She takes it.

The cake is buttery inside with a perfectly firm crust on the edge, like always. She remembers the first time Therese had shown her how to make one - she wanted to test out her “mum’s” favorite recipe, to make it for Kelsey’s birthday. Granted, halfway through the baking process, she’d become more interested in stringing the Happy Birthday banner over the display case, and had left Darcy to her own devices.

She smiles. Therese was - is - terribly clever and terribly gifted with an eye for decoration. She’ll make her mum proud again.

“I don’t think I’m afraid of dying anymore,” she says out loud for the first time, and realizes that she means it. “I know that’s easy to say, but...I don’t think I am.” She glances at Nebula, a slow ache filling the hole in her chest. “Not for any noble reason, you know? I think I’m past that. I think…” She closes her eyes.

It doesn’t take long for her to remember dancing on her dad’s feet at Corey’s wedding. Or yelling something dumb at him when she was a teenager. Smearing whipped cream on Zoe’s nose. Or holding back Leslie’s hair at her bachelorette party. Ian’s mouth on her hip as he disappears. A painful mishmash of memories both good and bad that she wouldn’t trade for a damn thing.

“I don’t know what I think,” she comes to finally, and when she opens her eyes, Nebula has her head tilted curiously to the side, her eyes yet again unreadable. “I’m not just going to give up, but if I have to die, I have to die. I guess I’ve made my peace with it.”

She’s not hungry all of a sudden, but she tastes the apple cake anyway, and lets herself enjoy the remembering that comes with it.

“You are a confusing Terran, Darcy Lewis.”

“I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way.”

The unmistakable sound of a lovers’ spat sprouting up from Jane and Bruce’s station makes her snap her gaze upward, hackles raised.

“Can you please fucking chill for ten seconds? This is not the goddamn time to get _ frisky _.”

“I didn’t mean to - I was passing behind you and I _ said _ behind - ”

“Take ten,” Darcy pipes up, aiming her toughest finger at the pair of them. “Rest your heads or have a snack. Mandatory break.”

“Darcy, I am so close to working this thing out, I swear to God - ” Jane points back, and it’s only then that Darcy sees the Mad Scientist Eyes in full effect.

“Nope. Mad Scientist Eyes. Take ten now, or I’m making it twenty. For both of you.”

Bruce puts his hands up in surrender, backing slowly away from his work station. Jane, on the other hand, is a little less than compliant, and only leaves grumbling a combination of Yiddish swears that would make Darcy’s Nana Lewis faint.

Who is she kidding? Nana Lewis likely invented a bunch herself.

Nebula cracks the first real smile Darcy’s ever seen on her, and finishes her half of the apple cake. “A _ very _confusing Terran.”


	11. ||eleven||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joy rides and cheeseburgers and handholding - _oh my!_

_ How can a person walk in a shroud _ _  
_ _ all the miles of their life. But how _ _  
_ _ can they shrug it off. _ ** _We were searching_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _for a place of refuge for our love, but instead_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _the road led us to the land of the dead._ **

_ \- “Unexhausted Time” - Emily Berry _

The day moves slowly, though its fruits come frighteningly fast. Darcy tries not to run around like a chicken with its head cut off, between helping Kelsey with snacks, watching over Scott, and making sure that everyone takes breaks when they need to. It feels like hours pass between the moments that she checks the clock, but the numbers tick by like molasses. By the time that mid-afternoon arrives, Jane and Bruce have constructed a tracking panel that links to FRIDAY’s smart screen, Tony and Rocket have built what look like four foot tall escape pods from the ground up, and Scott can stand by propping himself up against a stool.

Every second feels like a baby step combined with leaps and bounds.

Especially when she tries to forget that she could very well be dead when this whole thing is over.

Darcy is under the impression that only she and Nebula are in on that tidbit. When the latter of the two returns to planning with the strategic team, Darcy does her best to school her face from showing the pain and loss and confusion that have now crept into every fiber of her being. She wasn’t lying: it’s not selfless sacrifice that gives her peace in death. But it’s not resignation either.

Somewhere at the bottom of her stomach, the fear of regret sinks its claws deep into her.

“Hey.” Jane appears at her elbow, fresh off the latest snack break. The solemnity in her eyes tells Darcy two important things: that she’s gotten her shit together after the minor meltdown earlier, and that Darcy’s definitely not monitoring her expression well enough. “We’re...almost ready to boot this thing up. You okay?”

She pastes on a smile, hating having to lie to her best friend. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m just - uh, ready to be done with all this.”

“Seconded,” Jane huffs, and lays her head on Darcy’s shoulder. For a moment they’re back in the RV in New Mexico, lying under the stars and musing on the future. That’s the thing about the future, Darcy thinks, it’s never been certain. “Have you...figured out what Tony and Rocket are working on?”

“I have no idea. They look like eggs.”

Jane snickers, only straightening up and waving when Tony realizes she’s not at her station and lifts his welding mask to frown in their direction.

“You done with the space-time particle tracking doo-dad already?”

“Pretty much. You done with the egg-looking doo-dad already?”

Rocket pushes his little goggles up over his ears, the welder in his paw turned off. “They’re for the Stones. After we finish usin’ em, we fly up and shoot ‘em off into the nearest black hole so no other psycho can try to commandeer ‘em.”

“Do we know that spaghettification will be enough to actually destroy the Stones?”

Tony heaves an exasperated sigh. “It fucking better be. Otherwise I’m goddamn tired of this space bullshit, and I’m pulling a Barton. Build a family farm off the grid and never hear from the outside world again.”

Darcy smiles. “Good luck learning to make your own shawarma.”

Bruce offers to gather the rest of the team from their strategic meeting, and starts for the door before the word “yes” can even start to leave anyone’s mouth. Jane squeezes down on Darcy’s forearm - says he’s been anxious to get the damn thing on since they first started work on it. And then, leans in to whisper that he’d snuck into her dorm while everyone was sleeping.

“You sly dog,” Darcy whispers back, thrusting a gentle elbow into Jane’s side. “How was it? Was his...little Hulk _ also _incredible?”

“Shut up.” A giggle erupts out of her, but she covers her mouth to shield Tony and Rocket, who have taken to playing kick the can - the only situation where boys will be boys is applicable, from the conversation. “He wouldn’t let me take off his pants. But Darcy. The _ tongue _ on that man.” She clutches her chest for dramatic effect, eyes rolling upward. Darcy’s first instinct is almost to high-five her, keep jabbing her in the ribs with her elbow, but then she feels a dull frown tug on her face.

“Bitch, are you running on no sleep right now?”

“I _ slept _ ,” she insists, but the guilty expression on her face tells Darcy all she needs to know. “Hey, a half-hour is better than nothing, okay? It was just...Darcy, Bruce’s mouth is _ crack _. And it’s been...a while since I had somebody go down on me good.” For the first time in a long time, she watches a flare of pink light up Jane’s cheeks. “He’s really sweet. And I like him a lot. And I think I want to ask him out when this mess is all cleaned up.”

The hope in her voice tugs painfully at Darcy’s chest. After she and Thor had initially called it quits, Jane had had a hard time going on dates at all, opting to lock herself in her lab and lose days at a time in her work. It could be beautiful irony that pairs her with someone privy to doing the exact same thing.

Darcy reaches down for Jane’s hand and locks their fingers together. “I think you should go for it. No day like today, right?”

Bruce returns with the rest of the team in his stride: Rhodey with Clint, the latter finally smiling about a joke Rhodey’s told him; Pepper, in what appears to be a standard issue SHIELD tac suit, tapping on a Stark-modified PDA; Nebula stalking over to Rocket first, and leaning down to observe the pods he and Tony made; and Steve, with his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, a trusting smile on his lips as he nods along to what Bruce is explaining. It’s also worth noting, almost comically, that he has Nate sitting atop his shoulders, clinging tight to his neck.

She can’t help but smile, too. 

“We’re ready,” Jane announces, and Darcy can nearly feel the excitement and anticipation radiating off her. With how many times she’s used her giant brain to save the world, it has to be something brilliant to know she’s helping save the universe.

“Let’s get this party started, then.” Showing the mettle of leadership that seems to come so easily to him, Rhodey props his hands on his hips. “Let’s find Thanos and the rest of the Stones.”

Watching Jane in motion is like sitting in the balcony of a professional ballet. Like the effortless leaps and pirouettes and lifts that would grace the stage, Jane flits from one button to the next, and then a lever, her arms aloft with each second nature reflex. She is meant to be here, and while Darcy has seen her study every star in every lab on every continent that she can imagine, there’s nothing that suits her more than this element, this purpose.

“Initiating search.” Her face is lined with a determination that comes only with skill. “Deploying the Foster-Banner algorithm for target energy sources.”

Darcy grins.

The screen projects in front of Jane’s face, and a three-dimensional array of planets, constellations, what look to be black holes appears across it. Seven energy points glow according to their allotted colors.

Green and blue, side by side, trudging down a long path between an area Darcy recognizes as the remnants of Asgard, and here.

Purple, in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Yellow, near a label that reads “Xandar.”

Red, somewhere outside but not far from their solar system.

Orange, beside the small word “Vormir.”

And white, on a remote green orb in a faraway system.

“The colors are coordinated to each Stone,” Jane says, pointing at each in turn. “We know that the Time Stone is with Thor. I’ll send the exact coordinates to the ships and to your commlinks before you deploy. Time, Space, Power, Mind, Reality, and Soul.” She stops her finger at the final white light, frowning. “This is the energy signature where they originated. My best guess is that’s where Thanos is.”

“Then that is where I shall go.” Nebula’s voice is flat, but Darcy can identify the painful metallic venom to her voice; she’s out for blood. “That is where I will avenge my sister’s death.”

“Sure,” Tony chimes in, straightening up from his place beside Rocket. “But we wait until Thor and the rest of Asgard are back. They could have intel that would help us nail the bastard.”

“He’s not too far.” Jane traces the line between the blue and green dots and the Earth, her teeth grazing along her lower lip. “These two are moving in the same direction, at the same speed. If I had to guess, I’d say one of the Asgardians must have had the Space Stone. That puts us two ahead of Thanos right now.”

Jane goes on explaining, and the rest of them start to discuss how to split the teams, but Darcy feels her eyes wandering toward the little orange dot glowing gently on their space map.

Vormir.

_ “He took her to Vormir.” _

_ “When he returned, she was gone.” _

_ “I don’t know what you will have to sacrifice.” _

Goosebumps sprout at the nape of her neck, and suddenly the sky grows fuzzy, everyone’s voices traveling through her ears and to the back of her head like a television set stuck on a snowy channel. She’s vaguely aware of someone calling her name, or something that sounds like it, far, far away. But the thought that drums in her temples, refuses to beat out of her head, has never been more crystal clear.

_ I think I have to die. _

She finds out later that Kelsey is the one who catches her by the elbow, keeps her from hitting solid ground. Kelsey and Luis, the ones who take her on either side and steer her toward a chair in the lab, propping her feet onto the bottom rung of the nearest stool. Nebula, the one who presses her flesh hand to Darcy’s wrist to take her pulse while Kelsey pushes something that tastes both sweet and like cement between her lips.

“I’m okay,” she hears herself saying, after she manages to swallow. “I’m okay. Sorry.” She blinks hard, until the lab swims into clarity in front of her, and her cheeks fill with the embarrassment that half the living Avengers are huddled around her, watching her come back to life through concerned eyes.

“I’m okay,” she insists again, this time with the feeling returning to her limbs as she pushes herself fully upright, her elbows against the armrests. Nebula loosens her grip, but doesn’t let go, her black gaze lifting from Darcy to Steve, the one standing closest in front of her, crouching to search Darcy’s face. “I’m okay, I just...I need a minute. Go back to doing your...super-things.”

“Darcy,” Steve says softly, in such a low rumble that the irrational part of her, dancing between sleep and waking, wonders whether she’s the only one who can hear him. “Nobody’s going anywhere just yet.”

She swallows again, this time feeling the slick of her own spit crawling dryly down her throat. Just as the awareness returns from her eyes all the way down to her fingertips, he reaches forward to take her hand. She presses her lips together, looking back up into his honest blue eyes.

“Have we heard from Carol?”

He blinks at her, clearly not expecting that to be her next question. “No. Not yet. Why don’t you go rest awhile, and I’ll make sure FRIDAY lets you know when we do?”

“I’m okay here,” she promises stubbornly, and finally pulls her wrist out of Nebula’s grasp and her hand out of his. “I’ll be fine, Cap. Let me sort all this out, and then I can get back to making sure you crazy kids don’t get yourselves killed.”

He visibly tenses at her use of the unfamiliar nickname, but nods, eyes drifting down to where she’s let go of him, and then gathers himself up to put on his Captain face. “Sure. You’ll speak up if you need anything, alright?”

“Yeah. Promise.”

Jane meets her eyes with a look that tells Darcy they’ll talk later, before filing out of the room with Bruce, the rest of them falling in line to continue to discuss plans for retrieving the Stones.

Except for Kelsey and Nebula, who studies her through dark, narrowed eyes.

“What?” Darcy asks, once the door to the lot has closed.

“Your heart rate elevated when Captain Rogers came close to you.” Darcy waits for her to go on, averting her gaze when she doesn’t.

“He’s...a good friend,” she finishes lamely, looking at her lap. “You know why I can’t do anything.”

She realizes after she’s said it that they will take it in different ways: Nebula will believe that it’s because Vormir means sacrifice, and that Darcy cannot risk letting herself love if she isn’t coming back. Kelsey will believe that it’s because she’ll be bringing Ian back to carry out the happily ever after they’d promised each other. Darcy isn’t sure if one is more true than the other, and that thought fucking terrifies her.

“Oh, darling,” Kelsey sighs, and drops a hand gently onto Darcy’s wrist. “I’m so sorry. All will right, in the end.”

It is a feeble bandage to the larger wound, and something that Darcy _ really _ doesn’t care to think about right now. Not with her head still swimming. Not with these things that she shouldn’t _ have _ to know.

Instead, she says, “I know, Kels. I know.” And lets Kelsey have her turn fussing over her, pressing pastries and cups of juice into her hands, until Darcy closes her eyes and pretends to fall asleep. She hears Nebula volunteer to watch over her while Kelsey goes to get some rest of her own. And then, after the scraping of a chair’s metal legs on the concrete to bring it closer to her, Nebula prods her in the chest.

“I know you’re awake.”

Darcy opens one eye, then the other, to nearly jump at the vision of Nebula, hunched forward, watching her intently.

“You haven’t told anyone what I said about Vormir or the Soul Stone.”

“Neither have you.” She straightens up, pulling her feet off the floor and folding her legs into a criss-cross position atop the seat. “Why not?”

“Your life and death can be your choices,” Nebula answers, and though she has undoubtedly worked for years on training her expressions, keeping her face unreadable, she feels the strange sense that Nebula has always been honest with her. “If this necessitates your death, I hope for it to be on your own terms.”

_ But it’s NOT _, Darcy wants to scream. All her life and her death, if that’s what’s coming now, have led up to this point, somehow foreseen by an Ancient One that she’s never known and will never meet. It’s a foul responsibility thrust upon her, and yet...

If this is the end of her story, helping take down a murderous space despot by somehow commandeering a powerful space stone, then she’s going out with a fucking bang.

“Thank you,” she finally tells Nebula. “I know you’ve got, like...this cool badass galactic assassin persona to keep up, but...you’re kind of a good friend.”

Nebula spares her the ghost of a smile. “Thank you.”

Darcy smiles back, then tosses the empty juice box Kelsey had brought her into the trash near the door. Nebula watches warily as she gets her feet beneath her, and pushes the stool back to its station. “Come on. If this is my last day on Earth, I’m not wasting it here being sad. I’m doing something fun.”

“What _ are _you doing?”

“You can fly a spaceship, right? We’re gonna borrow one.” She offers Nebula her hand, pulling when she takes it. “Just for an hour or two, I promise.”

* * *

“It _ is _...pretty,” Nebula says, her chin propped on her flesh fist, peeking from the hatch of the Benatar at the waterfalls below them. The chirping of the forest around them combined with the rushing water ahead sets a melody that’s both tranquil and abuzz with life. Even now.

“My grandparents took my mom when she was a teenager. Her stepmother - we always called her Grandma Nita, she was as good as my mom’s mother - she was from Venezuela, and the waterfalls were something she’d only heard about when she was younger. My mom said she cried when they visited.” Grandma Nita, with her perpetually salt and pepper hair and her red lipstick and her rolled Rs, teared up every time she told the grandkids about this place. _ A hidden wonder _ , she always called it, _ right beneath our noses _.

Nebula nods reverently, dark eyes almost transfixed on the water. She doesn’t ask why this should be the one place Darcy would like to see before...whatever happens with the Soul Stone happens, and for that, Darcy’s thankful.

Nobody else on base seemed to mind too much that they were off on a renegade mission. Tony had sent up a transmission asking if she was crazy, and she said it was possible, but she’d be back soon. As far as any of them had known at the time, Thor and Nat were still on their way back, due by sunrise the next morning.

It’s taken them about an hour to get from upstate New York to the heavy jungles of Venezuela, and in that time, she’s called Lori just to say she loves her, and sends her kisses to her brother and Juli. As if nothing has happened, her mother updates her on one of the neighbors eloping with her daughter’s homeroom teacher. While Lori has always loved gossip, she’s never been too judgmental, and every other piece of news is punctuated with hopeful wishes.

“I’ve gotta go, Mom,” Darcy had cut her off, right as Nebula put the ship into a hover. “But, um...I love you. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay, sweetheart. Stay safe. I love you.”

“I guess it’s kind of silly,” Darcy says now, to no one in particular, but happy to have Nebula by her side. “I should want to visit places that I’ve been to, that mean a lot to me. But this was something Grandma Nita made sound...magical. And it is.”

She pulls her knees to her chest, watching a bird soar over the trees in the distance. There is a quiet majesty to this corner of the world, less assuming than the bustle of New York and filled with a sort of natural admiration that comes from being so tucked away. Out here, there is no Thanos, no Avengers, no Exodus. Only the beauty and danger of the Earth as it is, no rhyme or reason to have it any other way.

“A hidden wonder, right beneath our noses,” she repeats.

It almost makes her jump when Nebula rests a hesitant hand on her shoulder. “This is not silly. I hope that it gives you...some peace.”

Darcy’s heart swells with affection and with pain. She pushes her face into her knees and lets herself cry into them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m really, really tired of...feeling things right now.”

Nebula doesn’t say anything, but she also doesn’t take her hand off Darcy’s shoulder. Instead, she tightens her palm by a fraction, and waits until Darcy has finished crying to stand up.

“Is there anywhere else you want to go?” she asks flatly.

She takes one last watery breath, and feels a stupid laugh bubbling at her lips. “I really want a cheeseburger right about now.”

Nebula frowns, tilting her head. “A cheeseburger?”

They return to base another hour later with bags of In-N-Out that Darcy doesn’t care to explain, but nobody questions too much when you buy enough for everyone. She posts up at Jane’s side again, munching solemnly on her double-double, and for every moment of rest that Jane allows herself to have, nods onto Jane’s shoulder.

“Do you...want to tell me what all that was about?” Jane asks after a while, not looking away from the small glowing Stones on the space-map in front of her. She has every right to be upset, but there’s a tenderness to her voice that Darcy doesn’t expect.

“I just needed...it looks like, if everything goes according to plan, we’re all going in separate directions tomorrow. I needed some time to...see things a little differently, in case tomorrow goes...sideways.”

Jane sets down the handheld remote that she and Bruce have drummed up, covering Darcy’s hand with her own. “You sure there isn’t anything more you want to tell me?”

Darcy sniffles, unable to meet her best friend’s warm brown eyes. Just a few weeks ago, Jane had been holed up in her Manhattan apartment, trying to put the pieces back together after watching Erik disappear. “I’m okay. It’s just a lot of uncertainty and I wish we didn’t have to be apart to save the world this time.” She pulls one corner of her mouth upward, squeezing Jane’s hand and wishing she could make her smile too.

She tries not to think about how this all could be a lie, how after tomorrow, she might never see Jane or her family or…

_ This is the place where she doesn’t think of honey colored hair, or green-tinged blue eyes, or the husky rumble of a kind voice wrapped around kind words. This is the place where she can’t allow Steve Rogers to exist, because it will burn her from the inside out. _

“We’re gonna make it, Darcy,” Jane whispers, bringing Darcy’s knuckles to her lips. “We’re gonna save this world. You and me, like we always do.”

Darcy opens her mouth, to say what exactly, she isn’t sure, but anything that might have come out is silenced by the rumble of jet engines, and the shadow of a ship landing in the twilight.

* * *

Even if Steve had the same affinity for science as most of the intelligent folk around him, he’s still pretty sure that the concept of time travel would make no fucking sense as it’s spewed from Loki’s mouth at rapid speeds. He can barely make out vortexes, pocket dimensions, alternate universes, and at least a few Asgardian words that likely have no English translation. Steve wishes he had the patience that Heimdall seems to, watching on as Loki recites the functions of time and space in their travels.

“The point is,” Heimdall announces, as soon as he catches a break in Loki’s speech, “we took the ones who Thanos would have slaughtered, and the Thor and Valkyrie there continued on in that timeline - the one for you which took place weeks ago - to guide our people safely to New Asgard. By the morning’s light I shall do the same for these few.”

Carol Danvers shakes his hand, promising him a ship to take in the morning when she can wrangle one up. She explains how Nat’s transmission had reached her when she was on her way back to Earth, and she’d accompanied the team to safety as soon as she was in range.

“It’s good havin’ you back,” Rhodey tells her, speaking for everyone. He nods to Jane and Bruce’s screen, each of seven dots more vibrant across the latitudes of the universe. “We’re gonna need your light shows on board for the mission tomorrow.”

“You’ve found the Stones.” Loki frowns, one slender hand snaking between his hip and his cape. “Then I suppose...it’s pointless to conceal this?” When he draws it out again, the Tesseract glows blue between his fingers, pulsing with power and life.

“You’re on our side this time?” Steve finds it hard not to be suspicious of Loki’s motivations - Thanos or no Thanos, a good number of civilians died at his hand, and forgiveness shouldn’t come so easily. “No tricks, no illusions, no double-crossing.”

Loki rolls his eyes, lifting the cube between himself and Steve. “Dear Captain, I come to you in my time of need, offering you the thing I’ve now stolen twice. What better sign of goodwill can I forfeit?” _ And to _ ** _you_ ** _ , _ he doesn’t need to say, Steve the lowly mortal with a hero complex. But he takes it anyway, this thing that has wreaked its havoc on the universe time and again. It is solid, and real, and he can almost feel the whispers of time and space crawling up his forearm with it.

He pushes it into one of Tony and Rocket’s deep space pods, and locks the cover. A small digital number 1 flashes over its surface. He inhales, pressing the bridge of his nose between his fingers, and then feels his heart stutter when Clint cries out from behind him.

Everyone watches Thor emerge from the ship flanking the rest of the Asgardians, with a small, thin body plastered to his side. They’ve barely made it down the last step before Clint sweeps Cooper into his arms.

“You...stopped for Cooper.” The words leave his mouth with no clear aim. Loki chooses to answer.

“It was Romanoff’s idea. Obviously.”

He glances back up at the other man and sighs. “Don’t give me a reason not to trust you.”

After the hubbub of their return dies down, Nat corners Steve in a quiet moment to let him know she’s been in touch with Okoye. Since there are more teams than ships, Okoye has volunteered (grudgingly) to allow Tony and Rocket to tinker with some of the equipment on Wakanda for space travel. She’s understandably a little protective of Shuri’s lab and of the security of Wakanda in general, but for the good of the universe, it must be done. She will accompany Pepper, Rhodey, and Valkyrie to retrieve the Power Stone.

“Avengers in space,” Steve muses, thinking of the fantasy ice dancing show that he and Darcy had drummed up in what felt like another time.

“I’m going with Darcy to Vormir tomorrow.” Nat’s voice cuts clear through the evening air, and she turns her head slightly to see that no one else is listening. “She’s...I don’t know that she thinks she’ll make it past the Soul Stone.”

“What?” The question feels too sharp escaping his lips, and if Nat thinks anything about it, she thankfully doesn’t say anything. “Why?”

“Tony said she took a spaceship out for two hours and came back with enough cheeseburgers to feed what’s left of Manhattan. If there’s anyone who knows what self-destructive behavior looks like, it’s him.”

He can almost palpably feel his heart sink to his stomach. There’s no scenario he’d ever pictured losing Darcy, and even now it’s hard to imagine this bleak world without her kind eyes and quick wits. More than anything else, it pains him to think she could possibly feel this way, as if she’ll just be...gone tomorrow.

“What do we do?”

Nat shakes her head. “Live to tomorrow. Maybe...another movie night tonight?” A forlorn smile makes its way to her lips. “If you pretend to yawn at the right moment, she might let you put your arm around her.”

He chuckles. “Any other time, I’d tell you to shove it, Romanoff.”

“But not when you know I’m right.”

Half the core group head to bed early to prepare for the morning, which is probably the smart thing to do - partially because even with the Asgardians tucked away into the now max-capacity dormitories, the L building would be a little more cramped than their first movie night. As it is, the couch in front of the screen feels packed. From end to end: Clint with Cooper and Nate on either side, Rhodey leaning back into his cushion to make faces at Nate, Pepper with a bowl of popcorn on her stomach and her feet in Tony’s lap, Nat sitting on folded legs munching at a leftover cheeseburger, scrunched between her and Darcy and Jane, Steve, trying (and failing) not to take up too much space. Cooper has picked _ The Jungle Book _, the animated Disney film from the 1960s. It’s one of the ones that Steve hasn’t had a chance to catch up with yet - but the first few minutes in, he’s already amazed by the artistry of the jungle.

The special effects, the bells and whistles of the twenty-first century are amazing in and of themselves. But seeing this, somewhere wedged between _ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs _ and that _ Frozen _ movie Natasha keeps forcing him to sit down and watch, there’s something messily enchanting about this. A little extra line work in this story of family and belonging, finding one’s place in a world that shouldn’t have them.

Tony flicks an M&M at him, and he smiles, sinking deeper into his seat.

“How do you like it so far?” Darcy whispers from beside him, but a faraway look in her eyes tells him that the movie isn’t the only thing on her mind.

“It’s good,” he says, noticing the proximity of the curve of her shoulder to his arm. “I never got around to reading the actual book.”

“Don’t,” she says, and shifts her body to tuck herself into his side, still staring at the pictures flashing ahead. He burns where she’s touching him, sending a jolt of longing to his stomach. “I used to have the tapes with the making-of commentary at the end. I think the writers even told the actors that if you want to play the part, you don’t read the book.”

“I guess I won’t, either.” 

Steve glances down at her, her soft tangled dark hair and her crystal blue eyes and the gentle slope of her nose. The elephant colonel commands his ranks, and if Steve isn’t mistaken, there are tears collecting in the corners of Darcy’s eyes. He flexes his hand at his lap, eyes flickering to Nat beside him, who smiles as if she knows every last thought going through his mind, and slowly, hesitantly…

Crawls his fingers in the narrow space of the cushion between them until they lock between hers. He presses his thumb gently to the soft flat back of her hand, wondering idly if and when she’s going to pull away.

She doesn’t.

She does sniffle, swallowing down a sob before it can bubble to her lips. When he musters up the courage once more to look at her, it’s that same forlorn smile Nat had worn before. In a tiny voice, she says, “This was my favorite movie to watch with my dad. Growing up.”

The bear has made his arrival, Phil Harris’s brash voice unable to outmatch the wild thumping in Steve’s chest. He squeezes lightly, thinking he might just die when Darcy squeezes back.

“Your pa sounds like a hell of a guy.”

She gives a fraction of a nod and pulls his hand to rest against her thigh. “He is.”

The movie is not terribly long, but with his hand wrapped around hers, there’s not much of a candle that an old bear and cat can hold to the brilliant woman beside him. Steve wants to watch it with her over and over, just the two of them, so that any time those tears stream down her cheeks, he can swipe them away with his thumb and hold her to his chest and shield her from Thanos, from Vormir, from King Louie and Shere Khan.

But Darcy is not a fragile thing. No matter the planet, she will hold her own. No matter the challenge, she will shine.

The most beautiful thing about her is not that he believes in her. It’s that she doesn’t need him to.

When the credits finally roll, she peels her hand away from him, one doleful and dewy glance aimed up at him before Jane asks her something that Steve’s cacophonous heart cannot interpret. Nat pulls at him from her side, mouthing a question it takes him a second to read: _ walk her back _.

But by the time Steve is able to turn back, Darcy has her feet beneath her and a hand scrubbed over her face, Jane already wrapping her arms around her.

“You okay?” he hears himself asking, and Jane meets his eyes, nodding wordlessly.

“Yeah,” Darcy mumbles, muffled, and draws in a quivering breath. When she turns back around, her cheeks are wet and puffy, and her thin smile trembles. “Yeah, I...we should all get some rest.”

“Hear, hear.” Clint has a hard time prying his sleeping sons from their positions on his body - Rhodey reaches helpfully across to scoop Nathaniel into his arms. “Well...I’m looking forward to holdin’ down the fort tomorrow. You’d all best come back with all your limbs attached.”

“No promises,” Tony quips, wrapping an arm around Pepper’s waist. “This one’s taking all the best parts of me with her.”

Natasha is nudging him with her foot. _ Walk her back _.

He has no choice now - everyone is headed to the dormitories from here. But Nat falls into step with Jane, and Steve feels the weight of his arm hanging heavily between him and Darcy in the dark of the evening. He chances a look up at her; the tears have dried on her cheeks, but the soft white sliver of her teeth digs thoughtfully into her lower lip. She’s got her arms folded loosely over her chest, like she can’t decide whether to let the one nearest him fall between them.

“Hey,” he says, as softly as he can.

“Hey.”

“You’re going to be okay. I know you are.”

“How?” she breathes, sucking both lips inwards, and then releasing them swollen into the air.

“You’re…” Vibrant is too dull a word, for her. “...you’re so goddamn strong, Darcy.”

She chokes out a hint of a laugh, but lets him open the door to the dorm building for her. “I, um...I don’t know how this is gonna go.”

“Neither do I.”

Natasha bids them goodnight before ducking into her room, Tony and Pepper and Rhodey and Clint and Nate and Cooper and Jane sliding between them to proceed down the hallway. Jane kisses Darcy once on the cheek and slips into her own door. The two of them stand opposite each other, quietly, until the corridor is empty, silent of the bustle of life.

Her porcelain cheeks are stained pink with the remnants of her crying, and something else that keeps her from meeting his eye. He watches the anxious tugging of her teeth on her lip, the pull of her dainty hands on her hair. It still doesn’t feel like his place to reach for her and kiss her worries away.

“You’re a good man, Steve,” she finally says, lifting her gaze to his. “I mean it.”

“Darcy…”

“I don’t know what to do. I have a lot…” She inhales shakily, and presses her left hand, the one with the beautiful sapphire ring on it, to her mouth. “There’s a lot to this. You know? I just…” She swallows hard, and he feels himself leaning forward, feels his fingers cradle her cheek before the rest of him follows.

When Steve kisses Darcy for the first time, she tastes like strawberry lip balm.

Her mouth is soft but firm, and while she lets him tilt her chin up to meet her lips properly, she isn’t so pliant to let him take her lower lip between his. Instead, she presses into him, one small hand clinging to his chest as she traces the feel of him with her kiss.

Steve breaks first, searching her eyes for his own transgression, his heart stammering beneath her hand. But she’s looking at him still, her gaze crystal clear and honest, and for one small moment, there’s not a doubt in his mind that this is right.

She’s still holding onto his shirt when she says, in a voice so tender it turns his insides to jelly on the spot, “you need your rest, Steve.”

He lowers his hand from her cheek, stuffing it into his pocket. “Yeah. I’ll, um...I’ll see ya in the morning.”

He can’t drum up a proper goodnight before his hand searches blindly for the door. Instead, he watches her lower her head and open hers, disappearing inside.

Eventually, Steve makes his way to his bed, shirt and pants forgotten somewhere on the floor, his lips tingling and heavy with her taste. He studies the bumps in the paint on his ceiling, fingers pressing into the place on his chest where she’d held him.

His body sinks like a pile of lead into the mattress, but his eyes feel like they’ve been peeled open; how can he expect to rest now?

Now that this is what she wants. Now that this is real and right and clear in front of him.

He begins to roll onto his side, to screw his eyes shut and curl his body inward, so that maybe he’ll have a fighting chance tomorrow to pretend that Darcy Lewis is less important than setting the universe right.

And then three soft raps tap against his door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Peeking out from under my rock at 1:18 AM_ do you like me?


	12. ||twelve||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Steve's last night and morning together before hunting down Thanos and the Infinity Stones. All good things come, and all good things come to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big time thanks to crimtastic for beta-ing this one for me!!

_ I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, _ _   
_ _ I love you directly without problems or pride: _ _   
_ _ I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, _ _   
_ _ except in this form in which I am not nor are you, _ _   
_ _ so close that your hand upon my chest is mine, _ _   
_ _ so close that your eyes close with my dreams. _

_ \- “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII” - Pablo Neruda _

Darcy closes her door behind her, her heart in her throat.

Kissing in the hallway. Kissing  _ Steve _ in the hallway.

The sharp sensation of his beard still lingers on her lips, along with the softer tang of his mouth against hers.

She drifts to her dresser and tries to take off today’s clothes without missing the feeling of Steve’s big, warm body pressed flush to her. The ratty Culver shirt and gym shorts slide like whispers over her skin, her toothbrush gliding over her teeth as if of its own accord, but when she sits back down, wishing it were as simple as lying down and falling asleep, the persistent tug in her chest keeps her eyes from closing. Now that she knows what it’s like to have him so close, this bed and this room are too big and quiet and empty.

No sooner than her head hits the pillow does she realize...she’s not going to be able to sleep. Not like this.

Her legs carry her slowly from her bed to her door, to the hallway, to Steve’s door. This is stupid. He needs his rest, and so does she, to prepare for what’s to come. They don’t have time for these little...frivolous wishes of hers.

She lifts her hand to knock on his door anyway.

The light shuffle of his feet as soon as she drops it tells her that he can’t sleep either. He opens the door without looking through the peephole, his blue eyes wide and soft when he takes her in. She realizes a moment too late that he’s clad only in a thin blue layer of boxer briefs, and feels her cheeks go hot.

“Can I come in?”

He takes a slow, deliberate step backwards and moves aside just enough to let her pass. He and Nat have been on base the longest, but the room looks similar enough to the ones Darcy and Jane are occupying. Same small layout, same eggshell paint, with the bathroom on the opposite side. The few Steve-tinged touches, though, are undeniably him: the record player and box of vinyls tucked against the back wall, a large leather sketchbook with a pencil set resting on the desk, and a few charcoal dusted sketches pinned to the walls - one of what looks to be the Brooklyn Bridge, one from behind of three figures sitting in a row overlooking a lake, and one of a woman’s profile, her expression placid but her sharp eyes smiling somewhere out of focus. This last page is yellower and more weathered than the others, but she is still clearly beautiful, with high, mirthful cheekbones and thin curving lips framed by dimples.

Darcy realizes that she’s been studying it perhaps a moment too long. “Is that your mom?”

He follows her line of sight, maintaining a safe distance with one hand reaching restlessly for the coarse hairs at the base of his beard. “I wanted to draw her the way I remembered her. Before the TB.”

She’s forgotten how many death sentences have been handed down unjustly before all this. Without any reason or rhyme or fairness. If dying has a purpose, does that make it any easier? Should it make her feel better to maybe die for a purpose? “She’s beautiful. You’re a really amazing artist, Steve.”

He is about four feet away now, trying to make it look like he’s gazing up at the sketches as well, but she catches the sneaking glances he steals at her. Her stomach and chest swoop again, and she both wishes for nothing more than him to come closer and to disappear into the cracks in the ground, so she wouldn’t have to feel...like this.

“I don’t want to...I’m not really ready to do…” She summons up a deep inhale, blinking away the wetness in her eyes as she looks down at the floor, and wrings her hands in front of her. “I can’t sleep alone in that room. That bed.”

“Oh.” There’s a shade of surprise in the syllable, like it is unsure of itself escaping his lips. When he lifts his eyes to hers again, the tension in them begins to fade, and he is the Steve she knows, hopeful and kind and funny, asking her if it’s okay that he joins her on the drive to Philadelphia, telling her about his favorite movies, eating spaghetti in her living room, taking her side under Tony’s scrutiny. He chances a step closer, the dim light of the bedside lamp casting his perfect face in a golden glow. “Do you...want to stay with me?”

She nods, and swallows the tears rising in her throat. “I just need to feel you next to me. Please.”

He looks like he’s fighting the urge to ask her, please, if she can take the bed and he can sleep on the floor. Like the gentleman he is. And then, when the resolve begins to crumble from the top down, he turns away from her, lingers at his dresser to pull on a pair of soft gray sweatpants, and slides himself into the left side of the bed.

Darcy wants to cry and smile at the same time. They are dramatic, the two of them. He raises his eyebrows at her when she hesitates, as if to ask,  _ you coming? _

She toes off her slippers and climbs into the sheets, lying on her right side so she can see him, her hand propped under the pillow. The linens smell clean, and so much like him. Pine, denim, musk. He turns on his side to face her, too, smiling through those ridiculous lashes.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she breathes. She wants to rest her hand to his cheek, to kiss him again and again until her lips are swollen and her face hurts from smiling.

“I gotta get somethin’ off my chest.” His whisper comes from deep in his belly, impossibly soft and unbearably handsome. “I’ve been so selfish, doll.”

“You are the least selfish person I have ever met, Rogers.”

He shakes his head, mustering the courage she couldn’t, and lifts his hand to press his hand to the side of her face, brushing her hair away from her cheek, and then leaves it there, just circling her skin with his thumb. “You...have been in my head in some really...compromising situations. And it’s been real hard gettin’ you out.”

She feels her blush prickle all the way to the end of her nose. Sheepish Steve Rogers, like a schoolboy awaiting the telltale smack of a ruler to the knuckles, is a sight both endearing and anxiety inducing. “Define compromising.”

A muscle in his jaw clenches, and his eyes go lidded, like it hurts to come out of him. The last time he’d been like this was…

“Madison,” she gasps, laying the drama on thick, her smile goofy and a little sadistic as it rises to her lips. “You were thinking about me when you were with Madison?"

He shifts to lie flat on his back, face scrunching in chagrin. “I didn’t mean to,” he groans, and rubs the tiredness of the day out of his eyes with the flat of his finger. A part of Darcy misses his touch already, the warmth of his skin against hers, but most of her sneaks a giggle behind her hand at his self-inflicted agony. “Started the day before, the day we all went out for lunch. Nat told me it was a crush, I’d get over it, just needed to…”

“To what?”

“You’re gonna make me say it?” He turns back to her, landing a hand on the small of her back, pulling her so close their noses are almost touching. When he speaks again, she can almost taste his toothpaste on her tongue. “You’re torturin’ me, Lewis.”

“Best way to get over one person is to get under someone else,” she teases, finally reaching up to comb his overgrown bangs away from his eyes. “Wow.”

“It’s embarrassin’,” he gripes, dipping his chin down toward his chest, soft and grumbly.

Not exactly the word she’d put on it, considering that  _ she _ , the one who sometimes dances unironically to 80s power ballads when she cleans, flipping her hair up and down, pretending that it’s a permed mullet; the one who once danced at an amateur night, wasn’t used to heels, and promptly fell on them, skinning her knee, before spending her singles on late-night Denny’s; the one who still goes to her mommy for spaghetti when she’s sad;  _ she _ is the person that Steve Fucking Rogers has a crush on. Darcy Miriam Lewis, third place in the 1999 South Philly Spelling Bee.  _ Hers _ is the face that pops into Steve Rogers’ head when he’s having grown up sex with hot babes that pick him up in bars.

“That is...fucking unbelievable,” she laughs at last, and grips his jaw a little tighter to lift his eyes back to hers. “And very accidental, and completely understandable.”

“I objectified you,” he says miserably, his forehead dipping to her hairline. “It was gross and it was embarrassing and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get you outta my head. I ran around the city damn near ten times, tryin’ to sweat it out. And I’m sorry.”

She smiles, splaying her hand out across his cheek, letting her fingers catch on the bristles of his beard. “Steve. It’s okay.” He meets her eyes again, painfully vulnerable, and a tinge of inescapable sadness creeps from her toes to her fingertips. “Tomorrow we’re bringing everybody back.”

“Yeah,” he says, sobered, and that muscle in his jaw tenses again. “We are.”

She sniffs back the tears but they sting at the edges of her eyes anyway. “Why were you so nice to me from the start? It would have been a whole lot easier for both of us if you’d gotten a big ego from being Captain America, acted like a dick to a scrappy little nobody like me.”

He smiles weakly. “You want the truth?”

She rolls her eyes, trying desperately not to just break down sobbing here and now. But it’s too late for pretenses. Too late not to be anything with him but herself. “Yes, Steve, I want the truth.”

“Because…” He thumbs away the wetness below her eyes, looking deep into them now. “...you scare the shit outta me, Lewis. You stomped up to this compound in your pajamas and you demanded to be heard. To be fair, I don’t think there’s been a moment I’ve been around you where you haven’t scared the shit outta me.”

“Even now?”

“Especially now.” He presses a small kiss to her hair, one to her forehead, but stops before he gets to her lips, tilting her chin up so she has no choice but to look at him. “You got a way of captivating me, I guess. A scrappy little  _ somebody _ .”

Darcy knows she shouldn’t kiss him again. That if she does, she’s liable to spend the whole night kissing him, the whole night falling into his arms and pulling him closer by the back of his neck and drinking him in to appease the beautiful, awful need for him inside of her that has refused to be silenced since she let it speak at all.

But she presses her forehead to his anyways, and slants her mouth against his mouth, to taste his stubble and his determination and his inability to walk away from someone else’s hardship. Steve is soft and he is firm, and as he gently scrapes his teeth along the curve of her lower lip, an image of her own enters her mind.

Her, Steve. A sidewalk in front of them, their hands interlaced between them, fresh green trees and the sounds of a bustling neighborhood all around. It’s not as real as a memory, but more than a feeling, and in her head, she knows they’re together walking home.  _ Their _ home.

A terrible combination of shock and  _ wanting _ spikes in her gut. She pulls away just slightly, her nose brushing against his, and she can feel the question in his eyes before it ever leaves his lips:  _ what is it? _

“Steve,” she whispers, brushing her hand through his hair, and remembering the band on her left ring finger. “If it all goes right tomorrow, I have to save him. I have to…”

Have to what? If she’s meant to sacrifice herself, if she’s meant to die tomorrow, when can she and Ian be together again? And if she doesn’t die, if there’s some way of making it out and bringing Ian back, how could she let herself back into his arms after this?

“I know,” Steve says softly, cutting the downward spiral of her thoughts short. “I know you do. And I...don’t fault you one bit if you want to walk outta here right now. I don’t  _ wanna  _ pretend this never happened, but…”

“Neither do I,” she says, quickly and honestly. “I... _ fuck _ ...I can’t…” Her eyelids grow heavy, less with sleep than with the fear that if she looks at him straight on, she’ll just love him here and now. “I don’t mean to be cheesy or lame or...God, honestly, there’s no place I’d rather spend tonight than here with you, Steve. That’s why it hurts so much.”

With her eyes closed, she feels him slide his body away from her, far enough so they’re not pressed up against each other but still close enough for him to leave a hand on her hip, to connect them somehow. When she opens her eyes again, he’s left her some distance, but gazes right into her with a kindness in his face that threatens to make her crumble all over again.

“Then how about that’s all we do? Spend tonight together. I’ll keep my hands to myself as much as I can.”

She smiles in spite of herself. “You’re already doin’ a pretty shitty job of that, Cap.”

He slips his hand off her hip but runs it down her arm to lace his fingers between hers, in a sort of joined high-five that he doesn’t let go. “How about this?”

She grins down at his fingers, his nails scratching lightly between her knuckles. “I guess I’m amenable to this.”

He looks very much like he wants to lift her hand to his lips, but he doesn’t, looking right through her. “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.”

“I  _ knew  _ it. Your real favorite movie  _ is _ Casablanca. You big, romantic dope.”

A gentle flush paints him pink from ear to ear. “It was one of the last ones I saw in my time. One of the last ones I got to watch with Buck, before he shipped out. To take on the Major Strassers of the world.” There is something beautiful and sad in the way that Bucky Barnes has presided over most of Steve’s biggest moments, and it burns inside her to know that he’s been absent from this, from them.

“Will you tell me about him? Bucky.”

“Well, I didn’t really get to watch much of Casablanca with  _ him _ , he was watching the tonsils of the dame he’d brought to the movie with us.” At the thought of his best friend, and the good old days that all best friends used to have, nostalgia floods Steve unabashedly, like a burst dam. “He was always good with girls - he’d convince one to bring her friend along, talked me up like I was some kinda...well, some kinda Bogart. But about five inches shorter, and eighty pounds lighter.”

“Oh, I bet you were charming in your own right. You’d be cute skinny. Like a geeky barista who gives out his number with little doodles of the coffee shop cat on them.”

He smiles, brushing the tip of his nail back and forth across the knuckle of her pinky. “I had asthma, a bunch of heart issues, got sick every other week...I don’t know you’d have wanted a sickly little kid makin’ your coffee, doll.”

“I could be your sexy nurse. Put those weird bags that looked like intestines on your forehead.”

A soft laugh rises from deep within his chest. “My ma was a nurse, think that could get a little into Freud-y territory.”

If she could count the times that she wanted to kiss him, just in the last five minutes, she wouldn’t have stopped kissing him in the first place. She smiles back, and settles for bringing his hand to her lips. “Got it. Sexy medical play is off the kink table.”

He lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t speak the question that she knows is lurking behind his eyes:  _ What’s  _ ** _on_ ** _ the kink table? _ “Thought you were askin’ me about Bucky, Lewis.”

The thought of getting kinky with Steve Rogers scrambles her brains for a second. “Well, we all read about you guys doing so much for each other in the war...you went behind enemy lines to save him, he fought beside you...what was he like as Bucky? Not Sergeant Barnes.”

He shakes his head, and she knows the feeling; it would be like asking her what Jane is like, what her brother is like - she knows them too much to sum it up easily.

“He liked chasin’ girls. Baseball games and fairs, he’d chase girls till their dads or their boyfriends were chasin’  _ us _ down. That was another thing, he just liked bein’ out. Going dancing or to some party or something. He’d tell me I’d regret  _ not _ doing something more than I would just doing it.”

When Steve pauses, his own words washing over him, Darcy feels the warmth of opportunity, the warmth of this chance, taken, almost glowing between them.  _ Where would we be if I didn’t kiss him? _

“I think, after we got him back, though...he was a lot more afraid than before. Of his own head, of the brainwashing, but...he was afraid he couldn’t be the Bucky he was before HYDRA. Thought he wasn’t...you know, my best friend with the way he was now.” He worries his bottom lip with his teeth, his soft eyes going stormy with thought.

There were certainly times it was difficult to draw a line on redemption, on what was acceptable punishment or rehabilitation for someone who’d committed such pain and destruction, but under the hand of a higher threat. That was something Tony Stark had crusaded himself - his personal vendetta against the Winter Soldier largely influential to that cause. It’s hard to say whether it’s Bucky Barnes or the Winter Soldier who should be held on trial, and harder to say which exactly occupies the body that holds Steve’s best and worst memories, who exactly kissed girls in darkened movie theaters and who acted as an unstoppable hit man for HYDRA.

But it’s not war crimes that bother Steve. It’s the man he loved dearly, the friend who always had his back, having to reconcile that for a time his body was an agent of death, and wondering whether he can still be a good human being.

“And is he still your best friend?” she says softly, knowing the answer.

“‘Course. He was all I could fight for, for a while.”

She offers him a gentle smile, hoping that it masks the feeling that whoever returns tomorrow, she might not. “Then when we get him back tomorrow, you make sure he knows that. Okay?”

Steve smiles back, but she feels the storm in his eyes shifting, as if he can see through the cracks in her facade. If he does sense something wrong, he doesn’t press her. “Okay.”

She looks down to where they’re linked, their hands squeezing tenderly together, his fingers laced between hers. “I wish I’d met you in a different time.”  _ I wish that suffering didn’t bring us together. I wish that I could be with you without feeling guilty over Ian. I wish that we had more time. _

But Steve still watches her thoughtfully, his head tilting into the pillow. “I don’t know. You wouldn’t be the...brilliant Darcy Lewis you are today if you hadn’t gone through what you have.” She watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, processing what he’s about to say. “If I could take away all the death Thanos caused, if I could get that damn thing off his hand, I would have without a doubt. I’m not sayin’ the world wouldn’t’ve been better if we could’ve killed that bastard right away. But the cards we’ve been dealt, you and me, today…” He sighs, finally tearing his eyes away from her. “I woulda just hoped for a little more time.”

As loud as her heart is beating in her ears, and as much as it longs to stay in his arms and talk through the night, she knows they need their rest, their strength for tomorrow.

Darcy closes her eyes, slips her hands out of Steve’s, and nestles into his pillow, wishing his smell would linger with her when she leaves for Vormir in the morning.

“Me too.”

* * *

In her dreams, everyone that Darcy loves sits in the house in Philadelphia, around the coffee table in the living room. Her house is bigger than she remembers, with rooms that she doesn’t recognize, and as she wanders the hallways, trying to reach her family, she can see them waiting for her. Her parents, Corey and Leslie, the twins. Even Erik, Jane, Kelsey and William, Therese, decorating the living room with streamers from the shop. Someone with dirty blond hair who alternates between a small, skinny frame and a broad chest, thick arms. He sits cross-legged with a little girl in his lap, his fingers crossing strands of her dark hair into plaits.

She hears them mentioning her name, but the details of their conversation come in fuzzy, like radio static. Still, she can hear the joy in their voices, the laughter, and no matter how fast she feels herself trying to move, the living room doesn’t get any closer.

When the rug of the main hallway leads her to the edge of the front door, her feet won’t carry her any farther. Everyone looks up to greet her, but this time when they open their mouths, no sound comes out.

And then, suddenly, she’s going backward, far enough that she can still see them, but only just - packed behind a wall of glass. She presses her hands to it, smacks it with her palms, beats it with her fists. But there’s no fighting anymore.

She’s trapped.

Alone.

Quiet.

The last thought that crosses her mind before she wakes is,  _ at least they’re all okay _ .

When Darcy snaps awake, the morning is coated in warmth, but the early purple veins of sunrise are hardly peeking through the blinds amid the deep darkness. She forgets for a moment where she is, but then she notices the nightstand with its record player in front of her and the arm slung across her waist with its strong fingers closed over her stomach.

Steve’s body, big and hard, curls into her like a fingernail, his deep, slow breaths at her ear telling her he’s still dead to the world. His chest rises and falls sluggishly against her back, every inhale bordering on a snore.

Something in between fright and excitement pools in her stomach, her heart tight. Last night was real. She kissed Steve.

She rolls slowly onto her other side, careful not to disturb his arm around her. 

At rest, Steve is pretty. A thin line creases his forehead, as if even in sleep he’s worried about something or other, and his absurdly long eyelashes twitch at her minute movements. She wants to touch him, to cup his face and feel the curve of his cheekbone, but he’s so peaceful she can’t bring herself to lift her hand.

Instead, she closes her eyes again and lets herself lie in his arms a little bit longer.

A little bit longer doesn’t last too long. A soft grunt escapes Steve’s chest, and as he comes back to life, piece by piece, Darcy feels his hands tighten on the small of her back. He blinks awake last, and when he sees her, nose-to-nose with him, the ghost of a smile tugs on his lips.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

How the hell does he wake up with nary a hint of morning breath? She’d make a joke about him being made in a lab, but it might be a little too close to the truth.

“I want to kiss you again,” she whispers, “but I also probably taste icky right now. Do you have mouthwash?”

It makes him laugh, but he slips his hands from her back to her waist, loose enough for her to squirm out if she wants. She presses a gentle kiss to his nose and pushes out of the blanket, sliding her feet into her slippers.

After a moment, Steve pushes himself out of bed too, and pads behind her into the bathroom for his toothbrush.

It feels homey and mundane, gargling Listerine next to him as he brushes his teeth, like they’ve been doing this routine for years. She can’t help but compare it to when she and Ian first moved in together, the brief stutters of awkwardness where neither of them were sure who should spit into the sink first, and when they danced around each other as if afraid of moving too much into each other’s space. While she’s overly conscious of Steve and how big he is and how close he is to her, it’s almost like they don’t have time to be worried about the proximity, getting in each other’s way.

Not even when she reaches across him for the tube of toothpaste to dab a pea-sized glob onto her pinky and scrub it over her teeth, just for good measure.

He watches her in the mirror with a quiet smile, his strong hands bracing him against the counter. She watches him back, for the first time in the light of the bulbs overhead, able to take in the ropey muscles of his naked chest, the thin smattering of dark honeyed hair leading a trail into his sweats. 

The moment she spits into the sink a second time, dragging her sleeve across her mouth, he has her by the hips, gently turning her to face him.

“What time is it?” she whispers, searching his eyes for something to hold onto. He looks back at her with a certainty that  _ shouldn’t  _ be so sure.

“Bit before six.” His teeth clench over his lower lip. She slips her hands up his broad chest to rest at the back of his neck. “We got a little while till assignment.”

“Good. I want to...I want to do more than hold your hand.”

There’s the smallest hint of surprise in his stormy blue-green gaze, but he nods, stroking a thumb up and down the thin line of exposed skin between her pajama shirt and shorts. She shivers into him, and pushes lightly to back him out of the bathroom and toward his bed.

He stops her before the backs of his knees can crash into the mattress, tilting her chin up to him. “You sure, Darcy?”

She swallows, her name on his lips sending waves of longing down her spine. She curls her fingers into his hair, eyes locked on his. “Yes. Please, Steve.”

He kisses her long and slow, one hand at the nape of her neck, his thumb sliding down the shell of her ear, drawing another shiver from somewhere deep in her bones. She is the one to part their mouths and sweep her tongue across him, committing to memory every crack and every crevice of his lips. The taste of mint mingles with the taste of him, crisp and cool against the warmth of his body, his hand pressing into her back, sliding under the hem of her shirt. Darcy stifles her moan against his lips, pulling needily on his hair.

When Steve falls into a seat at the edge of the bed, he takes her down with him, his hands closing down hard on her thighs to bring her legs around him. Her teeth bump against his at the impact, and she smiles into his lips, resting on her shins on either side of his lap. He runs his hands up the base of her spine before pulling away hesitantly, looking up at her with raised eyebrows.

_ Okay? _

She brings her hands to the hem of her shirt and slips it over her head. He traces every curve of her naked torso with his eyes first, his hands a half-step behind as they make their way up her waist, weighing her breasts in his palms. 

_ Yes. _

Darcy leans down to meet his lips, her arms strung around his neck, and only spares him a brief kiss before ducking her head to bring her teeth to his neck, to drag the tip of her tongue along the edge of his jawline. He lets a groan into the open air, the inhale following it hungry and desperate, so she closes her mouth again over the pulse flickering just below his flesh.

“I wanna know you,” she mouths against him, raking her fingernails across his scalp. He runs the pad of his thumb over her nipple, catching it and rolling it in a languorous circle. She wants to listen to all his favorite songs, to find the places he bumped and bruised and scratched as a child, to hear his voice wrap around his dreams, his fears, his bad habits. “I wanna know you.”

It is a mantra in the morning air, a promise made out of something bigger than lust, something deeper than longing. She whispers into his neck, into his beard, into his mouth:  _ “I wanna know you.” _

“Darcy…” he sighs, and digs his hands into her hips, his face filled with pure sin as his lips wind a path from her collarbone to her chest, sucking her nipple between them. She whines his name, heat in her stomach rolling down to the place where she needs him, the place that is painfully Steve-deficient right now.

She knows he needs her, too - he is hard between her thighs, nearly throbbing to free them both from the thin layers that separate them.

He releases her nipple with a small pop, and Darcy giggles in spite of herself. But Steve catches her laughter with his mouth, swiping his tongue across hers while one hand skims between them, fingers peeling past the waistband of her shorts to nurture her need to be touched. He slides his fingers into her for one fleeting moment, gathering her arousal and pressing it to her clit with his fingertip.

His movements are slow and deliberate, like he is determined to turn her to jelly, kissing her while he pushes circles against her most sensitive parts. He is preposterous, this man, chasing her to oblivion with his hands and his mouth, with every kiss that feels like a vow:  _ I wanna know you, too. _

In a rush of motion that jolts from her place in the clouds, Steve wraps an arm around her and maneuvers her onto her back, slinking down to his knees to push hers apart. Her shorts fall down her ankles with a lifeless slap onto the floor. Darcy props herself onto her elbows, staring down at him between her legs as he fixes his gaze hungrily on her center. He glances up, presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh, his beard scraping the tender flesh there. She gasps, a noise that surprises her more than it does him, but it’s like giving Steve fuel for the fire: he nips her other thigh, alternating between soft, tongue-heavy kisses, and sharp nips coated in stubble.

“You’re teasing,” she groans, her teeth baring down on her lip.

There’s half a smirk in his voice when he lifts her knees, resting them on either large, muscular shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

This time, it’s the wet, warm prodding of his tongue circling her clit, and Darcy very nearly comes undone then and there, watching Steve’s nose bump the small thatch of hair above it, his large hands closing down between her stomach and her hips to pin her in place. She wants to buck against his mouth, wants to bury all her filthy sounds in his beard, wants to ride his lips until stars explode in her eyes.

“Steve - fuck - ”

She clenches her fingers in his hair while he laps and sucks at her sex, the brief thought popping into her head that she’s unsure who sounds filthier, him between her legs or her reaping the fruits of his delicious efforts. She comes under his grasp, choking on his name, wave after wave of pleasure rolling uninterrupted all the way down to her toes.

When the world slowly rotates back into place, Steve has released his hold on her, sea-colored eyes watching her curiously, but makes his way up her body with kisses that nearly feel shy trailing up her hip, above her navel, to the side of her breast, until he’s hovering over her, one forearm pinned to the bed beside her head. He smiles, hesitant, and brings his opposite hand to her cheek to keep her gaze on his. She only realizes now that she’s almost breathless, her arousal still glistening as it clings to his beard.

“Not fair,” she says, reaching between them to take a hold of the definite outline of him in his sweats. He sucks in a hiss at her touch, those long, delicate eyelashes fluttering together. She strokes him once through the fabric before hungrily pushing her hand past his waistband to free him.

His cock bounces against her thigh once he’s shoved his sweats off and kicked them to the floor. She sneaks a glance - very pink, thick enough that her fingers don’t meet her thumb around him, a thin clear sheen dripping from the tip - and then his mouth is on her again, covering her lips so that she tastes herself on him. He drags his teeth over her lower lip, and she adjusts her grasp to pump him long and slow, pressing into the underside of his dick on the upward strokes.

“ _ You’re _ fuckin’ unfair,” he whispers, leaning on his arm to knead her breast with his free hand, smiling when she sighs at the little twist of his index finger and thumb on her nipple. She watches the minute clench of his jaw as she pulls on him again, her insides clenching for him while he’s still twitching against her palm. “Doll, I…I wanna…”

“Please.” She smothers her next moan with his lips, shifting her thighs wider to allow him room to meet her in the middle. “I need you, Steve.”

He swallows, resting his forehead to hers, that storm in his eyes still, softly wondering, searching her like he can scarcely believe he’s even gotten this far, like asking for an answer he’s known his entire life. She lifts her free hand to his cheek, for the first time she can remember, her gaze utterly, unconditionally certain.

“ _ Yes _ .”

She helps line him up to nudge her entrance, lifting her lower half as his hand slides to the small of her back, pulling her up to angle himself properly. He presses a solemn kiss to her lips and thrusts cautiously into her, one, two, three shallow rolls of his hips to bottom out inside of her.

She has never felt so completely full, the stretching ache between her legs yearning for him to thrust into her again, again, again.

He looks at her like every curve of her face is a prayer, and she knows that he wants to draw this out, to take their time, learn each other’s heartbeat, live with their bodies pressed together, before the rest of today can come crashing down around them.

“Hey,” she says, the syllable smothered against his lips. “I’m here.”

“I know, honey,” he mumbles, pureness and honesty and beauty trickling through every note of his voice. 

He pulls out a few inches and rolls his hips back into her, the slope of his cock sliding lusciously back into her. Darcy’s legs, which have long since gone weak, somehow find their way around his waist, locking at the ankles against the small of his back. His lips seek hers in the pink rays of dawn flooding through the blinds, slipping up his hand into her hair as he begins to snap out a gradually rising cadence.

Every thrust seems to drag deeper, longing but never desperate enough to verge on selfish, slow enough that she knows he wants her to reach her crescendo again before they finish. Pushing the finish line back as distant as they can.

He captures her lips with the next slick stroke of his cock, swallowing the moan in her throat as the pressure begins to build between her hips again. She rakes her fingernails down the bunched muscles of his back, and Steve pays her back with the soft tug of his teeth on her lower lip. His thumb splays out over her cheek, his tongue sweeping purposefully between the lines of her mouth.

There is a quiet, heady ballooning in her mind, where every piece of her body realizes that every piece of him fits perfectly, that every piece of him belongs here, now, with her. His words echo in a small tin box she thought she’d pushed to the back of her heart:  _ “The cards we’ve been dealt, you and me, today…” _

Every languid drag of his cock inside her, every brush of his lips and his beard against her, brings her back to the crystal clear picture that she’s been trying to submerge since she danced in his arms to the oldies.

There is no universe, no planet Earth, no Philadelphia or New York or Vormir or London, where anyone will fit Darcy Lewis like Steve Rogers.

It is a combination of this beautiful, awful epiphany, and Steve’s body thrumming steadily against hers, into her, that chases her orgasm from the deepest center of her all the way to her fingertips.

She witnesses herself clenching around him from somewhere in the clouds, the eager slick of her sex coaxing his release from him as her shaking hands force his face to hers.  _ Look at me _ , she breathes into his lips, and when his eyes snap open, a lifetime as deep as a thousand oceans looks back at her.

_ I wanna know you. I wanna know you. _

Darcy draws a sharp inhale at the same time a groan wrenches from Steve’s chest, and he comes inside her with his forehead pressed to hers, throbbing in time with the pulse between her legs. The heavy rise and fall of their chests swell against each other in unison, until the rush of lust or want or something that she can’t yet wrap her lips around settles in the bed with them. As her brain catches up with her body, she slowly unhooks her feet from behind him and lets her legs fall to the wayside at his hips.

“Are you okay?”

His voice is soft, huskier than she’s ever heard it, his hand framing her cheek before he pulls his softening dick out of her.

“Yeah. Yeah, I...we should clean up.”

He nods, his eyes and mouth pinching slightly when he pushes himself off her, seating himself on his calves as she lifts her body from the Darcy-shaped indent in his bed. He rests a hand on her shin, squeezing down lightly once she’s sat all the way up.

“You wanna...wanna shower with me?”

She runs her tongue anxiously over both lips, nodding. “I, uh...don’t know if I can walk.”

She wants to commit the perfect sound of his laugh to memory, along with his hand on her waist, each scratch of his beard on her cheek, but the small walk from his bed to his bathroom ends too quickly.

As he carefully runs his hands down her flesh, scrubbing shampoo into her scalp and rinsing the suds from the valleys and curves of her body, Darcy promises herself fruitlessly to come back to this man. A sob rolls its way from deep in her belly, and Steve catches her to his chest when she crumbles, threading his fingers through her hair and knowing that he doesn’t need to say anything, knowing that right now all she needs is to be in his arms, until the water runs cold and until they can no longer delay the uncertain saving of the universe.

He tilts her chin up to him, her puffy eyes masked by the rolling droplets down her cheeks. “We’re gonna be okay, doll.”

She smiles weakly up at him, because if he’s going to remember her, she wants him to remember her like this - grounded in her love for him. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _it is 1:18am, my dudes_  
Anna Kendrick owns "Scrappy Little Nobody," and the gin joint line obviously belongs to Casablanca.  
Oh boy. Let me know how you feel about this one :P


	13. ||thirteen||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy goes to Vormir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I had a name for this fic, I had one of these scenes basically tattooed on my brain as I started writing the early chapters. I hope it's translated well <3

_ I stood at the edge where the mist ascended, _ _   
_ _ My journey done where the world ended. _ _   
_ _ I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky, _ _   
_ _ The sound of the water, and the water’s reply. _ _   
_ _ \- “The End of the World” - Dana Gioia _

If he could let himself, Steve would lose the whole day in the pale slope of Darcy’s bare shoulder blades. He’d smooth his hands over her muscles, kiss the skin between them, trace every line and every curve of her body over and over, until the both of them were too weak to leave the room. He’d lock her in his arms and promise to keep them safe, whether or not it’s a promise he can fulfill.

“Can I borrow some clothes?” she whispers, sitting wet and naked on his bed like a damn angel. When he gets near, she comes to her knees to kiss him again, for what might be the millionth time in the last few hours. But every time her lips leave his, he’s aching to kiss her again.

“You wanna take some of my pajamas off planet?” He runs a hand through her damp hair, shaking little droplets out over his bedraggled sheets. She presses her palms to his bare chest, her small fingers digging into his skin, to keep him in place.

“It’s the best way to impress all the aliens,” she begins, her eyes dipping to his collarbone. “I don’t love putting old clothes back on after I’ve taken them off. And I just have this fear that I’ll run naked across the hallway in front of literally everyone who’s sleeping here.”

He chuckles, presses a kiss to her forehead, and lets her go to rummage through his dresser for something to drape over her much smaller body. “I hate to tell you this, Darce, but I don’t think you and I are the same size.”

When he turns back to hand her a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt Nat bought him from the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian, she’s wearing a forlorn, faraway glaze in her eyes that pierces him down to the bones when she looks at him. She doesn’t drop her hand as the fabric passes into it.

“I need you to be careful today. Okay?” Her thumbnail scratches at the back of his hand, the only part of her connecting to him. He tries not to look at the sapphire glistening still so prominent on her finger.

“I will if you will.” When he lets go, his arm falling by his side, her body absent from him feels like a phantom limb - it’s suddenly difficult to imagine her more than a few inches away, let alone potential galaxies. He hates the gaps in his train of thought that fill themselves with Tony and Natasha’s murmurs of concern yesterday. “Can I ask you something?”

She nods, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

“I don’t know...what today looks like for us. For you and for me, for the rest of the team...and I know I ain’t in a position to ask you to promise me anything, but…” He brushes a thick, wet strand of hair behind her ear. “...I wanna be selfish again and tell you I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t come back.”

She closes her fingers around his wrist, catching his hand midair. She grips him tight, bringing his knuckles to her cheek. When she parts her lips, the soft voice that echoes through the space between them cracks. “If it’s for everybody, you of all people know that I have to.”

His heart drops into his gut. He cups her cheek, dropping his forehead to hers. “Will you promise me that you’ll try?”

Her throat bobs thickly, and she nods fast this time, the words dying before they can make it to her tongue.

“I don’t want you doin’ it for me, either. Or for Jane or your ma or - or Ian, even.” It feels wrong to speak his name, with her in his arms, her name and her face scrawled across the walls of his heart. “You come back because you have a hell of a lot of life to live still, Darcy Lewis. You understand me? You come back for you.” She blinks hard, but he seals her lips with a kiss before any more tears can escape.

He will realize a moment after she pulls away that it might be their last kiss.

But for now, she threads her hand through the hair at the nape of his neck, moving her lips softly, earnestly with his, her tongue dashing softly between them. She is the one holding him, pressing him to her chest, feeling his heart hammering just below his skin with the hand that isn’t pulling him closer. She kisses him with reckless abandon, seeming not to care that he’s drawn some form of the horrible frightening truth out into the open, or that he’s just spoken Ian’s name with his ring still on her finger and Steve’s hands on her bare body.

She kisses him like this is all they have, because it very well could be.

When she breaks away at last, when his head is light and dizzy with wanting her, she thrusts her arms through the t-shirt he’s handed her, yanking his shorts up to her waist. He wants to capture this picture, of her in his clothes, her lips swollen from his kisses, hair tangled and running damp down her back, in his mind forever. Even as she pushes her feet into her slippers, Steve wishes he could grab her and do last night all over again, lying in her arms until the sun rises tomorrow.

“You promise me something?” she says, collecting the clothes she’d discarded on the floor this morning. “When you have Bucky back, you make sure he remembers he’s still your best friend. Maybe not the man who went off to war with you, maybe not the Winter Soldier, but...still your best friend. Okay?”

“Yes.” He swallows tightly, pinning his hands to his sides. “I will.”

“Okay.” Her voice is high, broken, and she faces him with everything but her eyes as she moves with him toward his door. “He needs you. Wherever he is, he still needs you.”

_ I need you _ , he wants to say, but he watches as she closes her hand over the doorknob and twists it open. “Darcy…”

She pauses, one foot already out in the hall, and finally, at last, looks in his eyes, reaching to him to lace her fingers between his. “Steve."

He wants to spend a thousand years in her arms, a thousand years listening to her talk about her nieces and Casablanca and Jane, a thousand years with her hands in his hair and her mouth slanted over his. He wants to spend a thousand years loving her the way she deserves to be loved. None of this translates to any word he can muster up now, with her eyes glistening into his.

She takes him by the back of his neck once more, standing on her tiptoes to bring him down to her level, and presses a kiss to his forehead with warm finality. He feels his eyes fall shut. “I still wanna know you,” she mumbles, sliding her hands down to rest over his heartbeat. “But right now it’s time to go.”

Steve can’t bring himself to watch her close the distance to her door across the hall. So instead he listens for the soft click of her handle before escaping back into his apartment, and suits up.

* * *

With everyone packed into the L building, she’d expect the crowd of Avengers and Company to bustle along, jolly with life, ducking around each other to make breakfast and coffee and wish one another luck before they go their separate ways. But apart from the occasional babbling of Nathaniel in Clint’s lap and the shuffle of a new pair of feet into the room, it is unsettlingly quiet.

Jane slides her fingers between Darcy’s, squeezing them tight in one hand as she reaches for Bruce with the other. She wants to tell Jane everything: about Vormir, about her dreams, about last night and this morning with Steve. But her throat is tight, and with Jane leaning her forehead to the side of Darcy’s head, she’s almost certain that Jane can already tell. Maybe in the different shampoo, maybe in that denim-y, musky smell that follows Steve everywhere he goes, maybe in the cautious, cagey darting of Darcy’s eyes from her feet up to the middle of the room.

“You okay?” Jane whispers, rolling her thumb across Darcy’s hand.

“Mm.” It’s not particularly convincing, but successfully lying to her best friend is not high on the list of her priorities today. “You guys gotten your assignments yet?”

“No Hulk, thankfully,” Bruce sighs, twiddling with an unruly lock of his hair. “The asshole has performance issues whenever I even mention Thanos. For now, I get to stay on Earth and play astrophysics with a much better scientist.”

Jane swats him gently on the thigh. “Easy there, Mr. Seven PhDs.”

“It’s actually  _ Dr _ . Seven PhDs.”

Jane rolls her eyes, but it brings a smile to Darcy’s lips that reaches her all the way down to her rusty little heart. When Bruce isn’t paying attention, she leans into Jane’s ear again. “Hate to tell you this, but he  _ might  _ be a keeper.”

“Lewis.” Tony Stark stands in front of her like the popular kid recruiting a nerd to his table in the cafeteria. “Walk with me for a minute? Got somethin’ to keep you warm and unbubbly in the icy clutches of ebullism.”

She exchanges a glance with Jane before getting to her feet and following Tony to the kitchen. “Ebullism? Is Vormir prone to making regular carbon-based idiots like me...bubble up?”

“You’ve brushed up on your vocabulary. Chances are, you’d asphyxiate before you...internally vaporized, but it’s probably a good idea to keep cozy in open space anyhow.” He plucks a red and white Avengers-looking bodysuit off the barstool in front of Kelsey’s breakfast spread on the kitchen island and passes it to her. “Welcome to the team. I’d say I went to the trouble of guessing your measurements, but…”

“Natasha probably figured it out before you could?” The sturdy material stretches easily between her hands - she’s always wondered what kind of fabric superheroes use. Spandex rips way too easy.

Tony frowns at her, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “That woman is  _ scary _ . ‘S a good thing she uses her powers for good. Most of the time, anyway.” He draws in a deep inhale, eyes darting to the doorway to make sure they’re alone, out of earshot of the others. “You holdin’ up okay? With all the hubbub.”

“As much as I can, considering I’ll be in outer space in a couple of hours.” There is a deeper question lingering under his caution, and Darcy finds herself lacking the patience to wait for it to gradually fight its way to the surface. “What are you really askin’ me?”

For a moment, he has a hard time meeting her eyes, but when he does, a thin line of resolve between his eyebrows ensures that neither of them will break their gaze. “Are you planning on making the sacrifice play today?” 

Darcy opens her mouth to lie, blatantly, her jaw clenching along with something taut in her chest, but Tony holds up a hand. “I know I don’t know you as well as Foster or even Rogers or Romanoff, but I saw the thing you did with the cheeseburgers yesterday. Reckless shit, taking road trips to God knows where with the Blue Meanie, tearing up at that movie last night?” He raises an eyebrow at her, and she realizes suddenly that his folded arms and the set of his hips reminds her uncannily of her own father. “I may not have invented self-destructive behavior, but I sure as hell know it when I see it, Lewis.”

She chews her lip. It takes a second to really digest this - that Tony Stark, of all people, has chosen to lecture her on her risky choices - but she swallows, promising herself that she’ll shed no more tears today. What has to be done has to be done.

“I don’t know what Vormir holds, Tony. All I know is what Nebula told me. That Thanos went there with her sister, and came back with the Soul Stone. If he had to sacrifice her to use it - ”

“I’ve heard her explain it.” He watches her wring her new supersuit between her hands. “You think it means you have to die to use it?”

“I don’t know.” ‘I don’t know’ is quickly becoming her least favorite phrase in the English language. There’s so little she’s sure of these days, but one thing that she is sure of is there’s no way she could go on living if it meant just letting everyone stay dead, when she could do something about it. “Look, Tony, I don’t  _ plan _ to sacrifice myself. I don’t plan to die, and I don’t particularly want to. But if the mission calls for it...I’m ready to. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true.”

He looks at her another moment longer, and she knows that he’s trying to decide whether to tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. After all, he’s the one that nearly died in a desert, and in a black hole, and in more explosions than either of them care to count. She knows he’d tell her that she’ll have no idea what death looks like until she’s staring it in the face, if death hasn’t already stared all of them in the face after Thanos’s victory.

He blinks down at her, nothing in his expression crumbling. When it seems like the tension is at last at its peak, he lifts his hand and closes it on her shoulder. All he has left to say on the matter, before letting her change into her new superhero costume, is, “When you get back from Vormir, I’m hiring you full-time.”

The assignments are as follows: 

Jane and Bruce will remain on base to monitor the energy signatures of the Stones and track the team’s movements. Clint, Luis, and Kelsey will stay with them on the commlinks for guidance as needed, with Luis helping Clint mind his kids and Kelsey keeping them all fed and alert.

Valkyrie and Okoye, who have arrived with the Wakandan ships early this morning, will lead Pepper and Rhodey to the Power Stone in the Andromeda Galaxy. Valkyrie’s experience in leadership and in space travel, paired with Okoye’s knowledge of their ships’ mechanics, is reassuring enough for Pepper to squeeze Tony’s hand and promise him that she trusts the women.

Rocket has given Thor, Loki, and Heimdall a transmission for the space cops on the planet Xandar, guaranteeing their good intentions and safe passage. With the help of the Nova Corps, Thor should be able to extract the Mind Stone without too much trouble.

Since the Reality Stone isn’t terribly far off, Rocket is taking Kraglin and Scott to fetch it from the remote bit of space outside the solar system. If anyone else runs into trouble, they’ll be close enough to be on call to come to the aid of the rest of the team. Rocket is familiar enough with making the jumps through hyperspace that he’s already planning on serving as backup for the Titan-killing mission.

Nebula will be taking the helm on that. With the combined firepower of Carol, Tony, and Steve behind her, she is the one who has been wronged by Thanos, the one who truly has lost everything to him. When they find him, Darcy both believes and hopes that Nebula will be the one to deliver the final killing blow.

And Nebula is the first to wish her good fortune on her journey. She is not a hugger, Darcy’s worked out that much, but she lets Darcy take her flesh hand and squeeze it. “My mother’s last words to me were, ‘Go in safety, go in peace.’ I do not remember much of her, but those words are what I have. I hope they are not my last words to you.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” she mutters, swallowing hard, unable to meet Nebula’s heavy black eyes.

Everyone else who leaves before her blurs together. She will vaguely remember Rocket shaking her hand and pressing her iPod back into it, Thor clapping her on the shoulder with promises of his faith in her, Carol’s cavalier smile of encouragement, Luis’s speedily worded ‘good luck.’ But the goodbyes that she will hold close to her heart, whether she comes back or not, come, predictably, from Jane and Kelsey.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Kelsey pleads on one side of her, pressing kiss after kiss to her cheek.

“I will.”

“Your space travel won’t be particularly treacherous,” Jane says, trying to mask her concern with science. She can’t mask the quaver of her hands brushing the hair out of Darcy’s face, before offering her last hair tie. “It’s mostly a straight shot to Vormir once you exit the solar system, but if you need help figuring out the jump system, I’ll be on the commlink.”

“I know.”

“We love you,” the two of them say at the same time, and Darcy hugs them as tight as she can, memorizing the smell of Jane’s shampoo, the flour and sugar lingering in Kelsey’s clothes, their ruffled hair against her skin.

“I love you, too. I’ll be safe. And, I’ll...you know, I’ll see you soon. With Erik and William and Therese and my dad.”

The beginning and the end feel like the only parts that are not a lie. But then, lying doesn’t seem to come so hard anymore. Not with the great big mysterious something she’s about to step into. She doesn’t let go until Jane and Kelsey do.

She can almost hear her heart thrumming in her throat, watching the other ships lift off, one by one. The sky seems to split with the thunder of each takeoff, a sound that reminds her of Puente Antiguo all those years ago. Until only two ships remain on the ground.

Nat has disappeared into the cockpit of what she has dubbed the SS Ginger Spice. While the engines hover the black, oval-shaped craft about six inches off the ground, it waits patiently for Darcy to say her last goodbye.

“Don’t make it weird,” she tells Steve, wishing that the joke would stick over how much she wants to fall into his arms and melt into the ground right now, never to be disturbed again. He returns a morose smile, the fingerless Captain America gloves clinging to his palm as he reaches for her, to take her cheek in his hand.

“You promised.” It is all he needs to say, all he should say after this morning. This close, their scents have mixed together again, his smooth musk blending almost seamlessly with the cinnamon in her favorite hand lotion. She closes her fingertips over his wrist and presses a kiss to the fabric of his glove.

“Don’t worry, I still gotta return your pajamas.”

When he laughs, very little humor in the sound, it rattles her down to that part of her ribcage she thought she’d closed off when Ian disappeared. For a moment Darcy chooses to forget about Ian. And the mission, and anyone whose eyes might be on them right now. She pulls him to her chest, stringing her arms around his neck. “Remember what I said about Bucky, okay? He’s going to need you when he gets back.”

With his arms around her waist and her face pressed to his shoulder, she’s glad she can’t see him register her use of  _ he _ , not  _ we _ . Instead, he hugs her tighter, so that she can feel his cheek against her neck, her body swallowed by his as if this is his last chance to protect her, keep her safe from what will happen when he lets go. And, more than that, his last chance to hold her, to feel her curves and angles and the unforgivable way that they fit so perfectly with his.

“C’mon,” she whispers. Letting go of Steve feels like trying to forget how to breathe. “You’ve got a big, beautiful tomorrow to look forward to. I wanna see what you do with it.”

She chews on her cheek, doing all she can not to notice the way he blinks too fast and too hard, and how he won’t meet her eyes right away.

He opens his mouth, that muscle in his jaw clenching tight, and closes it again, trying to find the right thing to say just as much as she is. He finally settles on, “Good luck.”

Darcy swallows hard, musters up a half a smile that she hopes he will remember her by, and rips her gaze away from the soft blue eyes that say everything she’s too afraid to. She turns slowly, ducking her head, to walk away from Steve Rogers for the last time.

* * *

It’s a lucky thing that her footsteps and the opening of the rear hatch cover up the small and steady sounds of her heart breaking again, again, again.

Natasha doesn’t press her during the short flight to Vormir. But Darcy notices her sidelong glances and the frown that creases her fine face and the quirk of her eyebrow when Darcy holds down the power button on her phone, the screen going black.

“I talked to my mom yesterday,” she explains quickly. “I don’t...I don’t know what else I have to say to her. At least until all this is over.”

“That’s okay,” Natasha says, slowly, diplomatically. Darcy knows she’s seen people spiral like this before. She feels like she’s managing okay, tucking all the feelings that feel like bursting in her chest down, as deep as she can, but Nat’s caution now, along with Tony’s about her making the sacrifice play earlier, make her wonder how transparent exactly she is being. “Is there anyone else you need to…?”

Loose ends must be a common part of spy work. She is unsurprised that Natasha has weeded her intentions out so fast. “No. I’ve said my goodbyes.”

Nat chews her lip with a wordless nod, fixing her hands to the steering wheel while Darcy unbuckles her seatbelt to meander toward the back of the Wakandan ship, to see if she can stomach any of the snacks Kelsey has packed for her last supper. She’s fully aware that Natasha can hear every strangled sob that escapes her throat, but when she returns with puffy eyes and half a strudel between her lips, Nat thankfully has her eyes forward, her stiff upper lip pasted on.

The sound of her own chewing begins to grate at Darcy’s nerves. “Nat?”

“Yeah?”

“God, this is so stupid, but I...I wanted to ask you to please...keep taking care of the team. Yourself included.” She swallows down the beginnings of Steve’s name prickling at her throat. “I’m so fucking tired of all this suffering and death and bullshit. Promise me you’ll have more dance parties and movie nights and - ”

“I promise,” the other woman says gently, resting a hand on Darcy’s with her gaze still directed straight ahead. “I promise, Darcy.”

She squeezes Darcy’s hand, holding it tight until the pink skies of Vormir light up the ship’s massive front window a few hours later.

The ship touches down soundlessly on what looks like thin gray gravel, a quiet fog rolling past the desolate, dry fallen trees and jagged rocks at her feet as she exits. Natasha still hasn’t let go of her hand yet. She gives her a look that Darcy registers plainly, no matter how not-ready either of them is for what lies ahead:  _ no turning back now _ .

The tracker in Natasha’s other hand blinks green in the direction before them, and every step feels like walking across quicksand in a dream - the ground moves faster than her feet do, the world around her large and glassy, as if she’s seeing it through a fisheye lens. The tracker’s beeping speeds up as they approach a cliff, a hooded figure floating with its back to them at the precipice.

The voice that comes from it is cold and gripping at once:  _ “Natasha, daughter of Ivan. Darcy, daughter of Andrew. You have come to seek the Soul Stone.” _

The Red Skull, a myth she only ever envisioned in the pages of her history books, turns to face them with blazing black eyes. Darcy refuses to tear her gaze away. “We do.  _ I _ do.”

A sickly smile pulls at his lips.  _ “Perhaps you do not realize the price which the Soul Stone demands of those who wish to use its power.” _

She lifts her chin at him in defiance, sliding her hand out of Natasha’s. “I’m not afraid to die.”

Red Skull watches her curiously, his head tilting to survey her. A sadistic amusement plays behind his eyes.  _ “Your life is not your ultimate sacrifice, Darcy Lewis. If it is the life contained to the Soul Realm by the Soul Stone you wish to restore, then there shall be life in the Soul Realm that you must refuse.” _

Her heart jolts in her chest, and she only realizes now that her hands are shaking. Let someone stay dead? Trapped where she can never reach them, keep them safe? “Then what is it you want from me, Darth Maul? What do I give to get back the ones that Thanos destroyed?”

His eyes flicker to her quivering hands, the awful smile stretching wider across his face.  _ “I should think that a Stone for a Stone...would be the appropriate exchange.” _

She follows his glance to the small sapphire ring on her finger - all she has left of Ian.

A wave of nausea rolls from her head to her stomach, but she won’t give him the satisfaction. She swallows hard, taking a firm step toward him. “That’s what you want? I give up Ian, and…”

_ “You give up hope for the man you love, and those that Thanos sacrificed with the Soul Stone for his universal order return to safety. Exchange one soul for the many.” _

“What if I go in his place?” Natasha interrupts, before Darcy can put together the words to stop her. “I’m one soul. It’s the same exchange.”

“No.” Darcy closes her hand around Nat’s wrist, squeezing hard. “No, not - I can’t let you. I won’t - not you.”

_ “It is an acceptable exchange,”  _ Red Skull says, an awful excitement in his dead eyes. He casts a thin, wrinkled hand toward the edge of the cliff, like an invitation.  _ “One soul for the many.” _

Nat turns to Darcy, an apologetic expression on her face for a millisecond - 

And the next thing Darcy knows, she’s got an elbow to the gut, the wind knocked out of her chest. As she feels herself tumbling toward the ground, she watches Natasha begin to run in slow motion toward the edge, her feet sliding through the gravel.

A few things happen at once.

At the same time that the Red Skull begins to shout something unintelligible, Natasha whips her head around, her brow furrowed, and Darcy recalls the one season of Little League her parents signed her up for. Corey was the one who taught her how to throw.

_ Square your shoulders, chuck as hard as you can, bring your arm all the way across your body. _

Her ring soars in a wide arc over Natasha’s head, clear over the edge of the cliff. The last thing Darcy remembers before the world goes black is the muffled sound of her name being called.

* * *

“Hey, kiddo.”

Before her drenched skin, before the silent, empty magenta skies above her, Darcy recognizes her father’s voice. She feels her back straighten, feels herself break through the water clinging to her body to rise into a sitting position. When her eyes finally peel open, Andrew Lewis crouches in front of her like he used to do when she was little. She has never been so happy to see anyone - her dad, his hair that is now more salt than pepper, his round glasses, the little lines around his smile.

“Dad,” she gasps, wishing for the strength to throw her arms around his neck and never let go. Instead, he cups her cheek with his hand, bumping a thumb over her nose the way he did anytime she cried as a kid. “Daddy, you’re here.”

He chuckles a little, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, sweetheart, I am. How the heck’d you get here?”

She lets an incredulous laugh slip out and shakes her head, not bothering to brush away the tears that spill down her cheeks. “God, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Andrew chokes back something between a sniffle and a laugh, and wraps his arms around her anyway, burying his face in her neck. “We’re goin’ home, Darcy. You did all this right.”

“I did?” He lets go first, his eyes dropping to her closed hand. She doesn’t realize until now that she’s been holding a closed fist, and in it, something warm and glowing. When she opens it, a small orange stone sits unassumingly in her palm.

And when she looks up, the skies are no longer quiet, and her father is no longer alone.

Leslie stands beside him, with Zoe on her hip. Behind them, two men in tactical gear, and a woman in a red leather coat. A woman with green skin, her arms slung around a tall blond man, and a shirtless green and red man, a tree-like creature, a woman with large black eyes and flesh-colored antennae. The Black Panther, his sister by his side. When she searches the slowly forming crowd, it seems like everyone they’ve lost is here - smiling and hugging as if the world has just returned beneath their feet.

_ “Darcy!” _ comes a distinct, high voice from the din, and as she looks up, Therese Sawyer’s sandy curls are pressed to her chest, her arms tight around Darcy’s middle. William is not far behind, swallowing the both of them in a hug of his own.

“Darling,” William rumbles, tears in his throat, his barrel chest quivering as he holds her. “Oh, Christ, you’re safe. You’re alright.”

Darcy pulls back, gently pinching Therese’s chin between her thumb and index fingers. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you. How happy your mom’s going to be to see you.”

“Is Mum here?” Therese rushes frantically, peeking over Darcy’s shoulder like she’s been hiding her as a surprise.

“No, babe, but we’ll get you to her. I promise.”

“Darcy Lewis?” says an unfamiliar voice, this one belonging to a man with dark hair and a goatee, wearing what can only be described as something like a Harry Potter robe. She slips her hand around Therese’s, squeezing it gently before she acknowledges him. “My name is Stephen Strange. The Ancient One has informed me - ”

“You’re Dr. Strange? Super Sorcerer, or something like that?”

Therese giggles, but Strange gives her an agitated look. “It’s Sorcerer Supreme. The Ancient One trained me in the ways of searching the multiverse - you were sent by Tony Stark to help us save the universe and defeat Thanos.”

Lots of words in that sentence that she wishes she could unhear. “Can you help transport all these people...home?”

Strange gives her a once-over, his lips set in a firm, thin line. As if he can’t believe  _ she’s _ who the Avengers chose to represent the human race.  _ She’s _ part of the instrumental plan to help save the world. “I can. Any of them you want to take back with you and Natasha Romanoff?”

She squeezes Therese’s shoulder, glancing at her family, at Erik, whose head has popped up from the rabble and who grins his megawatt smile up at her from his place in the crowd. As full as her heart feels to see so many people here, safe, ready to come home, it still tightens in her chest over the one face that’s missing.

“You can take these guys to the ship, I want to...I want to just...make sure.”

Strange nods wordlessly and twists his fists in a circle, flashes of yellow like sparklers bursting from the movements. A portal opens to the cliff where she’d left Natasha, and before her family steps through it, they take their time to pull her into their arms, one by one.

Her dad holds her the tightest at the end of the small line. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

Strange summons the other sorcerers and in a few different portals they begin to thin the massive crowd of the previously vanished. It might be a few minutes or a few hours that she waits, craning her neck and feeling her heart sink lower and lower as she watches through the emptying valley for dirty blond hair, soft green eyes, and lanky arms that swing back and forth when their owner gets nervous.

A cold sweat forms on the back of her neck. She fingers the place where her ring was only moments ago, the naked space already beginning to feel like a phantom limb.

_ Please, Ian...let him be wrong...let him have lied… _

But when all that’s left is the cloudless purpling sky reflected from what seems to be an endless valley of water, Darcy feels her knees buckle beneath her, meeting the water once more. The ground past the water feels like slate, too smooth and too flat for her to dig her fingers into to find a solid foundation. She wants to cry, to scream, to throw up, but all that comes out is a pained gasp of the air rushing out of her lungs.

The Red Skull was right. Ian is gone.

She doesn’t remember following Strange through the portal back to Vormir. Doesn’t remember pushing past Natasha, who was so ready to break her promise to Darcy the moment she could be self-sacrificing. Doesn’t remember sobbing into her dad’s arms, or Erik’s, or even lying down in the rest pod in the back of the aircraft. But all this is what her father will tell her when she wakes up as they make their descent back to the facility in upstate New York.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispers into her hair, when she sits upright without the energy to lean into his hug, to scrub away the tears that won’t seem to stop rolling down her face.

“I killed him. I panicked, because I couldn’t let Nat die, and I...I killed him.”

He takes her by the chin and wipes her tears away for her. “No, honey. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t.”

“Daddy, I’m never - I’m never gonna see him again.”

“I know, baby. I know, and I’m so sorry.”

Darcy goes in and out of waking for the rest of the ride back to New York in her father’s arms, still sniffling by the time the ship touches down in the empty lot beside the lab. When the hatch opens she is vaguely aware of Jane’s arms around her, the sound of Kelsey sobbing into a pile with her daughter and her husband at last.

“You wanna go back to your room?” Jane asks her softly, but she swallows again, feeling her head swivel slowly back and forth.

“I just want everybody to come back safe.” She lets her father and Jane prop her up on either side and walk her to Scott’s vacated cot in the lab, lets Luis bring her a plate of pastries after he and Scott have reunited with two men Strange brings through another portal, the four of them jabbering about something she can’t keep up with.

She tries, though. To see the beauty of all that they have brought back. Clint kisses his wife over and over, Lila and Cooper and Therese chasing Nate and Zoe around while Leslie and Kelsey and William watch. Erik can’t keep the grin off his face as Jane shows him around the tracking panel that she and Bruce have created, like a proud dad. When ships begin to return, everyone is returning to open arms, to loved ones long lost.

“Hey,” says a voice from beside her, and she doesn’t have to look to recognize Natasha in the next seat over.

“The fuck kind of stunt was that?”

“Darcy…”

“I  _ told _ you I needed you here. To keep everyone safe. To take care of - of Tony, and Thor, and Bruce, and Steve, and Clint - did you  _ want _ to die? Did you  _ want _ to just leave me there, to get back here by myself and tell everybody I let you die there?”

“You had more to lose than I did, Darcy. You have a family, you have your friends, people who - who  _ love  _ you.”

Rage spikes in the back of her eyes. She lifts her arms, looking around at the facility - the one that Steve and Natasha took care of long before anyone else arrived. “Are you fucking kidding me? So do you.”

The truth is, she knows the Avengers would fall apart if not for Nat. Followed, not long after, by the rest of the world, probably. Grudgingly, Darcy reaches for Natasha’s hand, lacing her fingers between Nat’s, and leans her head on her shoulder.

“We all love you, Romanoff. You know this place would go to shit without you.”

Natasha sighs, squeezing Darcy’s hand. “I’m still sorry for...everything you’ve lost.”

She closes her eyes, unable to burn the image of Ian, grinning, with his head on her belly, the last time she’ll ever see him, out of her head. “Me, too. I guess...there’s still so much we’ve got.”

“Yes,” Nat says definitively, as the whooshing of another ship begins to descend on the compound, and slowly gets to her feet. “That’s the Thanos-Killer ship. Do you want to…?”

“Yeah.” Darcy clears her throat, sliding her hand out of Natasha’s. “Yeah, we should go see.”

But the moment she crosses the threshold into the lot, it is clear that something’s wrong. The hatch of the craft opens, hard, and Carol emerges first, wild-eyed, waving her glowing hands around to clear a path toward the lab. Tony Stark comes out sans Iron Man-suit, looking considerably frazzled, and shouts something Darcy can’t hear to Strange, who promptly opens a new portal and steps through.

“Darcy,” Carol says, once she locks eyes with her, and places her hands on Darcy’s shoulders. “You’re back,” she smiles, the words lurching clumsily out of her lips, and Darcy realizes a beat later that she’s trying to distract her.

Because Nebula comes out of the ship last, covered in blood, with a lifeless Steve in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hugs* I promise, this is _probably_ the last super angst-heavy chapter in this


	14. ||fourteen||

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

_Touching you I catch midnight_   
_as moon fires set in my throat_   
_I love you flesh into blossom_   
_I made you_   
_and take you made_   
_into me._   
_ \- "Recreation" - Audre Lorde_

“Hey.”

Bucky Barnes’ voice is thick and raspy in the dark, long after almost everyone else has gone to bed. At this point, only Natasha is slumped into the seat beside her, her head resting on Darcy’s shoulder, and even though Nat’s poker face is second to none, Darcy is convinced the soft snores rising and falling from her chest are genuine.

“Hey.”

He hands her a styrofoam cup full to the brim with steaming black coffee. She brings it to her lips, craving the scalding hot sting that makes its way down her throat. Bucky takes the seat across from her, the one that Steve had placed himself in when it was Scott they were watching over, the one recently vacated by one Dr. Helen Cho, who Strange had assembled along with Princess Shuri of Wakanda in hopes that they could save him.

“Sam still out in the world?” she hears herself ask, folding her legs beneath her for the hundredth time. He nods numbly, as unable as she is to rip her eyes away from the man in the bed between them. _Damn_, she thinks. Sam Wilson has spent nearly every moment since un-dusting running around with medical supplies, flying them wherever he hears they’re needed. She surmises quickly that he’s a helper down to his bones. Noble.

“Are you okay?” Bucky cradles the cup like he’s worried he’ll crush it. It seems like a silly question for him to ask her - _ he’s _ Steve’s best friend, _ he’s _ the one who’s been trapped in the Soul Realm for the last few weeks. She swallows her protests with another mouthful of black coffee.

“I think so.” The words crack at the back of her throat, like even her body knows that she’s lying. “No. No, I’m not.”

Bucky offers a weak half-smile. “I’d call you a nut if you were.”

This elicits a small chuckle from her. “He’s told me a lot about you. Well...kind of. Told me about you guys as kids, going to baseball games, tutoring the Italian kids, stirrin’ up trouble. And…” She looks into Steve’s face now, a few planes of his golden face still smooth and untouched by the bruising and swelling inflicted by Thanos. He doesn’t look peaceful. Doesn’t look much like the man she’d woken up next to this morning. Too much has changed. “...he worried about you. Thought you’d...given up on being his best friend.”

“No,” Bucky says sharply, as if the word is rent from his gut. “I ain’t never - couldn’t...he thought that?”

The rawness of his voice strikes a chord inside her, crumbling every bit of the resolve she’s been fighting to maintain. “He thinks you don’t believe you’re good enough anymore, after being...you know, the Winter Soldier. Like...he could ever _ not _ love you for who you are.” She rubs at a spot on her hand with her thumbnail. “Before we all left today, I told him...I told him he better make you remember that he does.”

She lifts her chin before it can begin to wobble too much.

“So don’t you fucking forget how much Steve loves you, Bucky Barnes.”

She swallows the air thick with uncertainty, and she doesn’t need to look at him to know that Bucky’s eyes have fallen with hers to Steve lying motionless before them at the same time, at the same time that she lets herself spill over with tears that she presses into her hand. 

The story has come to them in bits and pieces. It seems like a story nobody wants to tell, and she understands why. Thanos, a jungle planet. A new wave of minions, Carol mowing through most of them. Nebula and Steve, toe to toe with a one-armed Thanos, and Steve narrowly saving Nebula’s life. Thanos’ remaining fist coming down on Steve’s skull with a sickening crack. Nebula ripping Thanos’ head clean from his shoulders.

“No,” Bucky rumbles. His mechanical arm whirs into place as the fingers of it flex and then close around his coffee cup, his chin bowing toward his chest. “Miss Lewis, I couldn’t forget that about this punk if I tried.”

She wants to let everything come rushing out of her now. Steve’s kindness, the road trip, watching movies, dancing, holding hands, his lips on hers. His arms around her. His breath on her naked shoulder and his hands on her hips. It is the story she wishes they could fit better into, one where there is a happy ending after all this death and destruction, and where she doesn’t have to sacrifice anyone, or watch, helpless, as they linger between life and death.

And she would tell Bucky everything, if Tony Stark didn’t come tapping on the doorway with an exhaustedly expectant look in his eyes.

“Hi kids.” It’s as if he can’t bear to look at Steve, his gaze darting around the room everywhere except the cot. Like there’s...some unspoken guilt that he refuses “Darcy, can I talk to you for a minute?”

That might be the first time he’s ever called her by her first name. She eases her shoulder out from under Nat’s head and gets her feet under her, holding her near-empty coffee by the rim.

“Thank you,” she tells Bucky, and before she can force herself to stop, gently touches his shoulder on her way out. She can feel him tense with surprise, but by the time that she’s crossed the threshold in Tony’s stead, she spots him softening in the corner of her eye.

“This about your job offer?” she asks, once he’s led her into the kitchen, where only hours ago she thought she’d said her last goodbye to him. Tony shakes his head, falling onto one of the only barstools empty of a discarded Avengers suit. The kitchen island is littered with the boozey remnants of tonight’s celebrations - Darcy has to remind herself that even with Steve down for the count, there is still a universe-worth of things to be thankful for.

“You had anything to eat since you got back?”

She stares blankly at the bottom of her Styrofoam cup, lips pulling back into an empty grimace. While Tony slides the half-eaten cake that Therese and Kelsey prepared this afternoon toward them, she sets her cold coffee on the counter. “My fiancé is dead because of me.”

A small metal fork bounces and clinks across the island before coming to rest in front of her. “No. He’s dead because of the big purple shitbag Steve helped take down today.”

There’s an insinuation in his voice that makes her insides clench with discomfort. No mention of Carol, or Nebula, or even himself. _ Steve _. “I don’t think I’m in love with what you’re implying, Tony.”

He drops his head, a sardonic smile aimed at his hands. “Fair.”

After a moment of silence, she feels the beginnings of a smile tug at her lips, too. Tony Stark, rendered speechless by little old Darcy Lewis. She picks up the fork and spears a corner of the cake onto it. “Is it really that obvious?”

Tony grabs his own fork to dig into the opposite corner. “You deserve an A for effort. But...I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you this, kid...the All-American geezer is crazy about you.” He pauses for effect and aims his fork at her as if to show the severity of the situation. “Over the moon crazy, in fact.”

A blush slithers up her neck and into her cheeks. In short, yes, really that obvious.

“You talk like you know he’s gonna be okay.” She doesn’t bother to hide the anxiety in her voice. She’s lurked around the lab since he got back, trying to find out what she could from the snippets of conversation she’d caught between Dr. Cho and Princess Shuri. _ Cerebral lacerations, can be fixed, not easy, cellular repair, dendrites, accelerated metabolism _ . She has tried to repeat _ can be fixed _ in her head, again, again, again, but the sinking pit in her stomach has betrayed her every time.

He had disappeared into the Cradle hours ago, and still hasn’t woken up.

Tony rises from his spot to fetch a few clean glasses and fills them with the tap, sliding one across the counter to her like an outlaw in a spaghetti Western. “I trust science. That fucker in the other room? He’s the product of science _ and _defies it at every turn. No regular guy would’ve survived what Thanos did to him. I think…” He sucks in a long breath, one that tells her he wants to choose his words wisely. “...I think if there’s anyone who could turn him around, they’re all here already.”

“You asked Strange to bring Shuri and Dr. Cho.” She brings the water to her lips and savors the crisp, cold taste on her tongue. “That was smart.”

A thin line forms between his brows, and he studies her for a moment, jaw slightly agape, before speaking again. “I wasn’t just talking about them.”

She blushes again and ducks her head to pick at a speck of dust between her fingers. “Tony, I’m not a genius like them. I can’t...can’t even dream of doing the things they do.”

Tony exaggerates his sigh. For a fleeting moment he reminds her of Gloria Swanson in _ Sunset Boulevard _. “Lewis, you saved the fucking universe. You don’t figure that out soon, I’m kicking you outta the Avengers.”

A genuine smile definitely pulls on her lips this time. “You can take a girl out of the Avengers, but you can’t take the Avenger out of the girl.”

He folds his arms over his chest and raises his eyebrows. “Please. I really don’t need to know about your and the good captain’s sex life.”

* * *

Out of politeness, Bucky pretends that the door closing behind Darcy Lewis actually muffles the sounds of her conversation with Stark (he didn’t _ ask _ for enhanced hearing), not that he’ll ever acknowledge to either of them that he has heard what they’re talking about. But when those words leave Stark’s mouth - “over the moon crazy about you” - he stiffens in his seat.

He’s dumb for not seeing it earlier. Of course Steve was sweet on her. Why else would she stay by his side damn near the whole night?

“I only been gone a couple weeks and you suddenly find yourself a girl, huh, punk?” Steve lies silent on the bed, the shallow rise and fall of his chest the only indication he might make it outta this. “I think you might be tryin’ to kill me. Swear to God, I’ll keel right over from the damn stress.” He smiles weakly. It’s similar to something Sarah used to say to them both, on a more frequent basis than he’s proud of.

He doesn’t expect Steve to pop up and respond, but it still burns inside him that he doesn’t answer. He knows he’s gonna make it. There are no hands he trusts more than Princess Shuri’s - she fixed _ Bucky _ for Christ’s sake.

Something he didn’t make easy for her, either, he’s sure. She’s taken the murderous triggers out of him, siphoned out the HYDRA control words from the creases of his brain, sure, but at his own request, left him the nightmares. He deserves to remember all the people that died because of him. Deserves to hear the screams every time he closes his eyes.

Still, what Darcy said echoes in a little box at the back of his head. About him and about Stevie. Like Bucky could ever pretend he didn’t know how much Steve would give up for him. Like he could ever pretend he didn’t know how much Steve _ has _ given up for him. Stubborn punk couldn’t let Bucky face the music alone if his life depended on it. Maybe he owes it to him to...try a little harder.

“You still awake?” Natalia asks, groggy, stretching both arms over her head as her body slowly comes back to life. “C’mon, Barnes, even super soldiers have to sleep. Let me take the next shift.”

“Not tired.” He scrubs a hand over the day’s grime settling at the back of his neck. “You okay?”

“These chairs are _ not _meant for sleeping in.” She rolls her head from one side to the other, hissing with pleasure when her neck cracks. “Where’s Darcy?”

“Talkin’ with Stark.” He pauses, knowing he shouldn’t ask, but does anyway. “Her and Steve?”

“Mhm.” Her hands come to rest on her knees, and she leans forward, watching the monitor above Steve’s head tick out the slow but steady pace of his heartbeat. “I think they were both pretty messed up about it. She had a guy.”

Ah. The fiancé she brought up to Stark. “Shit. Gotta be rough.”

Nat grimaces, then heaves herself out of her chair to pursue the still-warm pot of coffee sitting on the hot plate behind him. “She didn’t wanna fall for him. She was dedicated to getting her guy back. Even...even when we left this morning, I think she was under the impression she was coming back with him. It’s just...fucking complicated now. She loses Ian, comes back and feels like…”

Her cup rubs against the counter, the high squeak from it grating Bucky’s eardrums. He purses his lips, taps the toe of his boot against the tile underfoot. “Feels like she’s losing Steve, too.”

“She’s not.” Natalia lifts her chin in defiance. Her resolve doesn’t quiver. “None of us are. Least of all you, Barnes.”

A beat passes. He feels his uncertainty bubbling under the surface, but instead of voicing it, he crosses and re-crosses his legs, letting a knee bounce under his elbow. Nat swallows up the silence.

“You know Shuri’s work. I know Helen’s. There’s no better place for him than here, with us. He’s _ going _ to be okay.”

He wonders whether she says it like that for his benefit or for hers. He nods anyway and pours himself another cup of coffee. When his ass hits the seat again, the clock above reads 2:23.

A few minutes later, Darcy finds her way back without Stark by her side. He only registers the deep circles forming beneath her eyes when she passes him in the light. He sees it now - the way that her gaze lingers on Steve, the small twitch of her hand toward the bed before she thinks better of it, like she wishes she could reach out and grab him out of this, like her touch might be the thing to bring him back to life.

He hears the gulp of a swallow travel down her throat. “Hi,” she says, voice cracking, as the backs of her thighs hit the seat.

Nat is faster on the uptake than he is. “You okay?”

Darcy sighs, almost folding into her chair. “Tony checked in on me. We talked about what happened on Vormir. About the ring, about Ian, all of it.” She inhales again, like every word takes a mountain of effort to push out. “He’s gonna have Pepper draft an NDA for me to sign in the morning.”

“Why?” Bucky says. It must come out a little too sharply, because her eyes dart up to meet his, her heart jumping in her chest. “You didn’t...you didn’t hurt anyone. You _ saved _ people.”

“Because when people find out that I sacrificed someone else’s life to bring them back, they’re not going to be as easy on me as you are.” Tears begin to well in her eyes, as much as she tries to hide them. “Jesus Christ, his family isn’t going to know where he is, or what happened to him...all his friends and all the people he knew in London, our neighbors…” She chokes out a little gasp, then bites down so hard on her lip that Bucky can start to smell the copper in her breath.

“Hey,” he says, his feet jumping to life under him, carrying him around Steve’s figure on the bed and to a crouch in front of her, his flesh hand closing down on hers. She doesn’t expect him to act so quickly like he knows her, but then, neither does he. “Slow it down. Look at me, huh? Breathe for a minute.”

She draws in one deep breath, expels it, and repeats. Bucky reckons she didn’t realize she’d worked herself up so hard she’d forgotten to breathe.

It happens. “Hey.” He puts a cautious hand on her shoulder, hearing her heart begin to slow again. “Look...I’m really sorry. I didn’t know your guy. But he musta been real special to get a gal like you to say she’d marry him.”

A soft pink tint fills her cheeks, and she lowers her head, letting a few tears slide down her nose. If he didn’t have enhanced hearing, he’d miss the quiet, “he was.”

“I know. The world’s missin’ him, just like you are.” He feels his forehead wrinkle, brushing her chin back up with the tip of his prosthetic finger so she can look at him. “That’s a call nobody should ever hafta make. It ain’t fair, and I’m sorry you got the short end of the deal. It’s...a hell of a responsibility, and I don’t know that I’d be brave enough to do it the way you have.”

“He’s right,” Nat pipes up, shifting in her chair, her coffee seated in the center of her lap. “You saved my life. And you wanted me to know how much the people around here need me.” She nods at Steve on the bed, passing her cup from hand to hand. “You saved a hell of a lot of people who need you, too.”

The thought seems to give Darcy some pause. She glances at Steve, up to Bucky and Nat, and then down into her hands. “I want to give Ian a proper funeral. If not with his family or his friends, then...with us.”

Bucky nods. “Sounds like a good idea to me, doll.”

He hears the heart monitor pick up its pace before he hears the small gush of air slide past Steve’s lips. In a small, almost croaking voice, his best friend breathes: “Me too.”

* * *

Natasha blinks awake to the soft sounds of a guitar being plucked. Once her brain catches up with her slowly waking body, she realizes that it’s not an actual guitar, but a recording of one playing from someone’s cell phone. From beside her, Darcy stirs weakly, picking up her upper half from slumping against Steve’s bed and fishing through her pocket to find the source of the noise.

“You okay?” she hears herself asking, each vertebra of her spine rolling upward as her body comes back to life. Her eyes dart reflexively to Steve, who, just a few hours ago, opened his eyes for a split second, when he’d spoken to her and Bucky and Darcy. The ghost of a smile pulled on his lips when he saw them, and then, as fast as he’d woken up, he’d fallen back into rest.

It’s the kind of sleep they all should be getting - the kind of sleep that heals.

“It’s my mom,” Darcy mumbles, scrubs a hand over the exhaustion in her eyes, and springs out of her chair to stride across the room, push through the door, and disappear down the hall with her phone cradled against her shoulder.

The rest of her family must be here.

Nat meets Bucky’s gaze across the bed slowly, looking like he’s still in the middle of waking up as well. “You get some rest?”

He nods wordlessly, fixed on the sunrise slowly peeking over her shoulder. He closes his eyes, face splitting into a wide yawn, and rolls his shoulders from front to back in small circles. “You?”

“Yeah, some.” She inhales deeply, getting her feet beneath her, and lifts her chin toward the ceiling. “He hasn’t woken up since…?”

“Nah.” It doesn’t seem possible, but Steve almost _ looks _ better since Shuri and Helen had operated on him. Better, even, since he’d spoken a few hours ago before shifting back into the sheets and closing his eyes once more. A little more color in his cheeks, if she dares think about it. More peaceful, somehow, than he’d been when he’d been removed from the Cradle. “‘S good, though. He deserves a rest.”

“Yeah.” She tries to hide a sniffle behind the back of her hand, the dawn sprawling low and pink across the horizon in her peripherals too damn beautiful a backdrop for what is going to be a big, heavy, cathartic, painful day. “It’s gonna be an interesting day.”

“You can say that again,” Bucky begins, before his head lifts, picking up the faint whooshing sound that slides through the beats of the heart monitor.

She turns in her chair just in time to catch the winged figure of Sam Wilson descending into the parking lot, his face lined with his own exhaustion. Nat hears Bucky get to his feet before she does the same, reaching to the back of her neck to tie her hair back into a low ponytail. Sam crosses effortlessly through the door of the lab.

“Hey, birdman. You all done putting the world back together?”

He pushes his goggles to the top of his head to reveal the circles beneath his eyes, a wry smile half-lighting his face. He presses a hand to his lower back, rolling the other shoulder out as his wings tuck neatly back into their pack, but takes the one-armed hug when she offers it. “Not even close, Romanoff. We got a lot of damage control to do.” His voice lowers when he glances toward the hospital bed. “How’s Steve holdin’ up?”

“We got him awake for a second,” Bucky explains. He twiddles his thumbs when he’s nervous: a habit that HYDRA would’ve beaten out of him if they had any control left. “When his girl was here.”

Sam’s eyebrows lift as he falls into the seat beside Natasha, pressing his palms into his knees. He bounces a leg, his teeth baring down on the corner of his lip. “Not Sharon?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Not Sharon.”

“Damn. How long have we been gone, again?”

Barnes gives a rare chuckle, crosses one ankle over the other. “For once, we agree on somethin’. But, uh...I like her. Think she’s good for him.”

Natasha raises her head to meet Bucky’s eye. “That’s a short amount of time to make that kind of observation, Barnes. She’s convinced you so fast?”

“You’ve known her longer. She hasn’t convinced you?”

“Oh, it’s not that.” She swallows her sigh, her elbow coming to rest against Sam’s. “I think they’re good together, too. Cute, even. Just...this thing took a hell of a toll on her. On both of ‘em. It’s just that...two broken pieces don’t always make something whole.”

They go quiet, nothing but the heart monitor to break the silence as they sit around Steve like the three of them have done so many times before. After a moment, Sam presses both hands together, his fingers steepling as if into prayer.

“Maybe...maybe we could all use a win after this. Maybe this is theirs.”

* * *

Steve’s life has flashed before his eyes more times than he cares to count. The last time that it happens, the only thing he can remember before the world goes dark is the wide pair of blue eyes that sing his love when she asks him to come back to her. _ “You’ve got a big, beautiful tomorrow to look forward to. I wanna see what you do with it.” _

When he feels his eyes shut completely, he waits for the figures that are sure to take him onward, beyond the places where Darcy will bring back his friends.

Sarah. Peggy. Erskine. Even Joseph Rogers, wearing his war-torn uniform and a cautious smile that says he’s proud of his son.

But they never come.

Instead, he catches bits and pieces of a world continuing to turn around him, somehow still so far away. The faint sound of Tony Stark’s voice has never been so welcome.

_ “You die on me, Cap, I’m kicking your perfect ass to kingdom come.” _

_ “His vitals are weak, but they’re there, boss. We need to get him back to Earth.” _

_ “Nebula, I need you to - please - he’s dying.” _

His head whirls with nausea, and for a moment it feels like someone has plugged up his ears with tar. He forgets his limbs, forgets the shield that has grown to something like an extension of his hand, and slips into darkened silence.

He dreams of his mother coming home late on a summer night, thumbing away the dust and grime from his forehead before she kisses it. She slides out of her shoes, a hand kneading at her lower back, asks in a voice that Steve hadn’t realized he’d almost forgotten what kind of hell he’d raised today. He reports on Gianni’s grammar lesson, and the Italian candies Mrs. Spirelli had rewarded him for his work. Sarah reports on her most belligerent patients today, Mr. Roth’s insistence that he could use the bathroom by himself more an act of rebellion than ability.

They laugh together, and she closes her skinny hand over his, and for the first time in years, Steve sees the lines of labor clearly in his mother’s face.

He dreams of a Moroccan lounge that Nat guides him to when they’re on the run. Bucky cracks wise about "playing it, Sam," and Sam masks his smile into the pipe of a hookah across the room. This is the night where they take down a Finnish human trafficking ring, sneaking small and dazed children back to their bedrooms, as if they’d never left. 

When the team returns to their hideout, smelling fire and the hot, savory scents of a skillet, and Steve enters first with his gun raised to find Wanda home from the spice market, rolling her eyes at him while she puts together their dinner by hand, no magic. While they eat, Sam asks why she doesn’t just use her magic for daily tasks, why it wouldn’t make things easier.

His favorite mental image of Wanda is the smile that follows, that tells Sam all the most magical things are the little ones, done by hand.

He dreams of his last night on Earth with Darcy, his body curling around hers, her soft laugh in the moonlight. He dreams of her hand in his, of her eating spaghetti at her mother’s house, of her quietly singing along to the _ Jungle Book _. He dreams of holding her and dancing with her and cradling her face with both his hands while she tells him never to let go of the things that are important to him.

_ “You’ve got a big, beautiful tomorrow to look forward to. I wanna see what you do with it.” _

He dreams of a hilltop he’s never seen before, a house that he’s never set foot in. He dreams of pressing kisses to Darcy’s part, and squeezing her to his side, and both of their hair going gray as they look towards a big, beautiful tomorrow, together.

He dreams of singing her the same song her grandfather used to sing to her, of twirling his fingers through her hair as the words put her to sleep.

_ “Is that...is that her singing to him?” Nat is asking, somewhere muffled, behind a door or a wall somewhere, quiet enough that if he didn’t hear the way he does, he wouldn’t know. _

_ “Yeah,” Bucky is saying, a lilt of curiosity to go with his sigh. “I think so.” _

_ “He only woke up the once?” Sam is saying now. He sounds the most tired of all. _

_ “Yeah. Just for a second.” _

_ “I’m never dying again,” Wanda says, and the three of them chuckle around her. _

_ But louder, more clearly than the rest of them, the same song that trembles down into his ribcage, in the same voice that he could listen to the rest of his life, if he’s lucky. _

_ Love me tender, love me sweet, _ _  
_ _ Never let me go. _  
_ You have made my life complete, _  
_And I love you so._

He feels his tears before he understands them, but he recognizes Darcy before he sees her. And she is radiant.

His tongue dips into the cracked bloody split of his lip, and his voice escapes him in one low, soft gust: “hi, sweetheart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the home stretch, folks. One chapter left and I am so excited to tie off these two crazy kids and so sad to say goodbye to this universe/fix-it. I hope it's been as much of an adventure for you as it has been for me <3


	15. ||epilogue||

_ “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, _ _   
_ _ don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty _ _   
_ _ of lives and whole towns destroyed or about _ _   
_ _ to be. We are not wise and not very _ _   
_ _ often kind. And much can never be redeemed. _ _   
_ _ Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this _ _   
_ _ is its way of fighting back, that sometimes _ _   
_ _ something happens better than all the riches _ _   
_ _ or power in the world. It could be anything, _ _   
_ _ but very likely you notice it in the instant _ _   
_ _ when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the _ _   
_ _ case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid _   
_ of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” _ _   
_\- “Don’t Hesitate” - Mary Oliver

It happens on a Friday, around four o’clock in the afternoon.

There are no press outlets welcome to the groundbreaking ceremony, but everyone dresses up anyway - it is, after all, a celebration. The lot of them stand in a small cluster of friends and family, the superheroes and superhero-adjacent, waiting for the podium at the head of the new building to be filled by James Rhodes, the Secretary of Defense, and then Natasha Romanoff, liaison and leader of the North American Avengers Division.

One year after half of the universe has been restored, Natasha digs her heel into a shovel to officially break ground on the Ian W. Boothby Research and Development Building.

Jane wraps an arm around Darcy’s shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of her head, whispering that Ian is proud of her, that he loves her, wherever he is. With Steve’s hand squeezing hers on the opposite side, Darcy leans into Jane’s embrace, knowing that she’s right.

When Steve offers to grab them a glass of champagne - code for, “letting you have some alone time” - Darcy asks if Jane ever misses this place: the dormitory building that had felt like home for a few months, the old lab room that, through the windows, is little more now than construction dust. She can’t decide how badly she feels about the old lab being gone; it was where so many things had been fixed, and so many things had lain broken.

Jane says she doesn’t think so, not really, brushing her sideswept bangs out of her face, the glimmer of the small diamond on her left ring finger sparkling in the sunlight. Since leaving the compound, she and Bruce have been offered visiting scholarships and massive research grants at Culver. She doesn’t love spending half her late nights grading papers and planning lessons, but it’s worth it - all of it down to the cramped office that she and Bruce share.

Darcy smiles - and something clenches around her heart that might be happiness for her best friend, might be the familiar ache of missing the man whose name will be on a building once it is finished. Might be a combination of both.

The party lasts through the night, and through emptied champagne bottles and crumb-crusted biodegradable paper plates, Therese marching her brand new baby brother around to announce him to everyone she meets, eventually Darcy finds herself alone with Steve in the kitchen, the dying sounds of Nat and Bucky singing drunken karaoke in the lounge almost a world away.

She slides her fingers along the countertop beside the sink, then hoists herself up to sit on top of it, swinging her legs gently back and forth. Steve leans into the spot beside her and places a hand on her thigh.

“Do _ you _ miss this place?” he asks, his head falling naturally onto her shoulder now that they’re almost the same height.

Darcy wets her lips. If she’d close her eyes, she could picture Tony proudly holding up her Avengers uniform; Kelsey pushing a brownie and a glass of water on anyone who looks too tired to stand; Luis trying to explain the story of how he and Scott had committed their first heist together, with all the tiny details splashing into vivid color.

In a way, this place is another home.

She settles on, “Yes and no.” The hand that’s on her thigh laces its fingers through hers, and she turns her head a fraction of an inch to press a kiss to Steve’s dark golden locks. “It’s the road that led me to you. And it’s a place where I didn’t know I could hurt so much.”

He squeezes her hand again, steady. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says softly, too tired from the day and all the memories that she’s lived one too many times. “It’s also a place where I didn’t know I could love so much.”

Steve turns himself around so that he’s pressed between her legs, his large hands on the small of her back through the silky maroon dress that clings to her skin. He looks at her with his honest ocean blue gaze, his chin tilted up so he can meet her eye.

“I love you more than anything,” he tells her quietly, sweeping the hair away from her face. “And I’m gonna spend that big, beautiful tomorrow with you for the rest ‘a my days.”

She dips her forehead against his, closing her eyes before the tears can spill over. Steve presses his lips to hers, cradling the back of her neck with a firm and gentle touch. He is big and strong and warm and familiar, and every curve of her body melts to his the same way that he melts into her. When he breaks the kiss one too short moment later, his eyes have gone misty, too.

“Love you for the rest of my days, Steve Rogers,” Darcy echoes, and slides her hand into his hair to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is probably shorter than you expected, but I've trudged through about 5-10K words that...just didn't feel right to end this bad boy on.  
It has been a beautiful journey, friends, and I have so loved having you by my side as these crazy kids navigated themselves into love. Thank you for sticking by me, for leaving me sweet and funny and thoughtful comments, for believing that some way, some how, Steve and Darcy would find each other. This was for you, and I will always be grateful ❤︎


End file.
